


so afraid

by orphan_account



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), WandaVision (2020)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Anxiety Attacks, Asthma, Asthmatic Monica, Bisexual Wanda Maximoff, Developing Relationship, Empathy, F/F, Getting Together, Lesbian Monica, Mental Health Issues, Michael B. Jordan's Johnny Storm, Monica Rambeau is Spectrum, Monica-centric, Panic Attacks, Pining Monica, Pining Wanda, Romani Wanda Maximoff, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Spectrum!Monica, Telepathic Bond, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2020-12-16 06:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21032129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “'You think you’ll disappear', Wanda says, blinking softly. Tentatively, a pulse of energy exudes from her and tangles with Monica’s. 'You think you’ll get lost and that you’ll never find your way back.'Monica just nods, the carpet soft and smooth against her cheek before her skin dissolves into pure energy. “'It’s so easy to phase through shit, even when I don’t want to.' She inhales, content at the feel of her power mingling with Wanda’s. 'I know it’s dumb but-''It’s not dumb.' Wanda reaches out a hand, then, seeming to decide against it, allows it to linger an inch before where Monica’s floats. 'It’s not.'". . .It's not easy, adjusting to life as a being of extra-dimensional energy.But luckily enough, Monica doesn't have to deal with it alone.





	1. Birth of Spectrum

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY. So before we get started, a couple of notes.  
First off, the title comes from the Janelle Monae song So Afraid.  
Secondly, the main characters in this are Monica and Wanda, with Johnny being somewhere between a main and a supporting character. And this is MBJ's Johnny, just to be clear. Johnny's also been aged up to be about Monica and Wanda's age.  
Thirdly, I've tried to be respectful with Stephen and Wanda's heritage but let me know if I messed up with something, and I'll go in and fix it.  
Last, Nick, Stephen, and othrr supporting characters only show up a few times, so Ill put something in the notes of those chapters to say that.  
And I think that's it. I've been working on this since I first heard about Monica being in the WandaVision show, and I'm so happy to finally be posting it. I doubt we'll actually get this in the show, but I do hope we get a good relationship between them (and Monica getting her powers).  
Anyway, enough rambling. This is the fic. Updates are on Mondays. Comments and feedback are always welcome so let me know what you think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. So before we get started, a couple of notes.  
First off, the title comes from the Janelle Monae song So Afraid.  
Secondly, the main characters in this are Monica and Wanda, with Johnny being somewhere between a main and a supporting character. And this is MBJ's Johnny, just to be clear. Johnny's also been aged up to be about Monica and Wanda's age.  
Thirdly, I've tried to be respectful with Stephen and Wanda's heritage but let me know if I messed up with something, and I'll go in and fix it.  
Last, Nick, Stephen, and othrr supporting characters only show up a few times, so Ill put something in the notes of those chapters to say that.  
And I think that's it. I've been working on this since I first heard about Monica being in the WandaVision show, and I'm so happy to finally be posting it. I doubt we'll actually get this in the show, but I do hope we get a good relationship between them (and Monica getting her powers).  
Anyway, enough rambling. This is the fic. Updates are on Mondays. Comments and feedback are always welcome so let me know what you think.

She doesn’t remember being born. But if she did, she would liken it to this.

Where once there was nothing, now, there is something and then,

everything.

Light. Warmth. Energy.

Creation.

Faintly, she realizes there are screams surrounding her. It unsettles her because she hadn’t known she’d had ears. She lifts her hands-she has hands-to the sides of her head and presses them there, eyes going wide when her hands pass through.

It’s then that she realizes she doesn’t have a body, but rather the shape of one. And that? That brings about its own distress.

The space between her ears throbs as she blinks and shakily rolls onto her knees, pushing herself back on her haunches to stare out at the crowd before her. There are people here, all covered in soot and blood and staring at her with various states of panic etched across their faces. She blinks and nearly startles when she feels a hand passing through her shoulder.

“Monica. Monica, baby, look at me.”   
She turns, because that name-that voice-sounds familiar. Her eyes land upon a man in a black coat; there’s an eyepatch in his hand, clenched tight between his fingers, and his eyes, one brown and the other white, are watching her, softly, sadly. Despite herself, she, Monica, staggers to her feet and towards the man. Her body converts from energy to matter as she collides with him, arms wrapping tight as if she’s afraid she’ll slip away if she doesn’t grab hold of something sturdy.

“It’s okay”, the man shushes, his hand going up to hold the back of her head. He shivers, and something about that unnerves her, too, because she knows this man, and, however long she’s known him, she’s never known him to shiver before.

_ Something must have scared him _ , she thinks and then feels a staggering wave of guilt because was it her? She holds him tighter, and, though the shudders don’t fade, the tremble in his voice does. “You’re gonna be all right.”

Monica blinks; she buries her hand in the leather pressed against her and takes in a ragged breath. “Uncle Nick?”

The man lets loose a relieved breath. “Yeah.” He claps her across the back and nods. “Yeah, it’s me.” He pulls away and looks at her. “I called your moms and your dad. You’re gonna be okay.” “I...I can’t feel my hands.” She gasps, and, if she still had a respiratory system, she’s pretty sure she’d be hyperventilating right now. Nonetheless, she still feels like she’s on the verge of an asthma attack. “I can’t feel my stomach! I-” 

“I know. And I know it’s probably really freaky-” 

“Probably?!” Her voice has gone shrill, and, behind her, she can see the crowd of people cowering, whimpering and turning away as a wave of heat surges from her center of being.

“-but I need you to breathe.” Nick reaches for her hands, but she’s gone intangible again, and he can’t grab hold of her. The skin between his brows furrows, and he purses his lips, leaning forward to calmly say, “We don’t know what’s in you, and if you freak out, there’s no telling what the fallout’ll be. Okay?” He slows his words to a heartbeat’s cadence and breathes, airy and long, like when she was a kid and couldn’t find her inhaler. “Just breathe.” 

“I don’t have any lungs”, Monica realizes, her own voice going faint and faraway again. Nick snaps his fingers in front of her face, and her eyes dart back up to meet his.

“Not right this second, no, but you did a second ago.” He blinks and breathes again. “You just gotta get calm again.”

That doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense, she doesn’t even know how she got here, doesn’t know much of anything beyond that her name is Monica, this man is her Uncle Nick, and that there was some sort of...explosion or something. She blinks, rapidly, and Nick’s hand is in her shoulder again before he curses and waves at her.

“Nicki. I need you to breathe. Hey, keep them eyes on me. Okay. Now.” He takes in a deep gulp, and Monica swallows, doing the same and watching as his shoulders rise before he lets the air out. She lets her own shoulders fall and does the same, feeling a sort of accomplishment at the smile this draws from him. “All right, now. Now. Again.”

They carry on like this for, one shaky, wavering breath at a time, until Monica can breathe again, can feel again. When at last she feels solid, she smiles and wraps her arms around herself. And then she looks behind her, to the crumpling oil rig collapsing behind her and frowns, overwhelmed by the sudden fear and indignation coursing through her.

“I’ll explain later”, Nick says, and his voice sounds muffled. He grabs hold of her hand and tugs; Monica’s feet burn hot and meld into the floor. With a deep breath, they come from free and she finds herself floating a good five feet over him. Nick simply purses his lips and extends a hand. Monica leans over, grabs hold, and allows him to pull her back down to earth.

But even then, the tips of her toes hover over the ground.

Nick doesn’t say anything. Monica turns her back to the rig and allows herself to be pulled along, feeling like a helium balloon that could, at any moment, drift away and be lost.

Forever.

. . .

There are two helicarriers waiting beside the barge the survivors have taken shelter on; one for the civilians and one for she, Nick, and a woman her brain faintly supplies as her cousin Maria. Her eyes go wide when she sees Monica, darting to Nick, who merely sighs and says, “She got caught in the explosion”. He’s yet to let go of her hand, and, for that, she’s grateful. His presence is just about the only thing keeping her grounded, in every sense of the word. 

“Anyone else?”, Maria questions, giving Monica a worried glance before walking down the ramp and taking a seat at the wheel. The ground lurches, and, if Monica’s feet had had purchase of the ground, she’s certain she would have stumbled. As it stands, the only result is a mild sense of discomfort in her stomach. 

It strikes her as an odd thing. Because somewhere, within the muddied recesses of her mind, she knows flying used to be something of a comfort to her.

_ My life _ , she thinks as the memory of her face above clouds rushes to the forefront of her mind.  _ It was my life. _

“...she got everyone out before the reactor finished charging up”, Nick is saying; he moves to take a seat but, seeing the hesitation in Monica’s eyes, neglects to do so. “If any residue remains, it’s at the bottom of the bay by now.”   
Maria sighs, rubbing her fingers into her temples, and mutters, “Radioactive fish and gators, like we haven’t already fucked up the water enough”. It makes her smile, makes her skin tingle. Belatedly, she realizes this is because she’s losing form again.

“Just hold on”, Nick says, eyes swimming with sympathy. “We’ll get somebody to have a look at you.”

The way he says it. So calm, so succinct, so matter of fact. She’s still a bit hazy on some details, but she knows it wasn’t by happenstance that he and Maria showed up. This is their work. They deal with people like her.

_ A man in red and gold. _

_ A panther. _

_ Spiders, one in blue, the other in black. _

_ Shadows, daggers, lightning, fire. _

“Gonna need a damn good doctor”, she murmurs to herself, and no one tells her she’s wrong.

. . .

Nick gives her an inhaler and says, “I know it hasn’t bothered you for a while but…” 

Monica just takes it, removes the clasp, and pumps, once to clear the inhaler, then three times to take in air. She’s still not herself, still made of some form of energy she doesn’t recognize, but it makes her feel better all the same. 

They’re somewhere else now, somewhere on land. She recognizes it as the Avengers Compound, but it’s a detached memory, like she’d seen it from behind a shower curtain rather than up close and personal. She doesn’t let it bother her, though. She feels wound tight enough as it is; last she thing she needs it another anxiety attack.

Nick has a team look at her, and Monica doesn’t pay attention to a majority of the checkup. She just sits, or rather floats there, and tries to remember what it felt like to have a body.

. . .

The consensus is this.

Whatever was in that reactor, it was never meant to be absorbed by the human body. Hers was never meant to survive the assault, but it did, and, somehow, the energy and her very molecules combined to create something brand new, something unheard of.

The people examining her say this as if she’s some sort of scientific miracle. Then they look at her, see the dread morphing her features, and compose themselves.

“Will I ever be me again?”, she asks, and it takes a while for anyone to answer. 

“You’ll be a different you”, a man offers and turns his attention back to the screen displaying her vitals for the entire world to see.

Monica lifts her inhaler to her mouth and takes in another breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ashensunsets over on tumblr btw. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chemical Reaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is Johnny and Wanda's debut chapter. Johnny's aged up to Monica and Wanda's age, he and Monica are roommates, and Monica's struggling with her powers and the effect they have on her body and her mind.  
Also, I'm not at all a science-person, but I'm trying to keep this as scientifically accurate as I can, let me know how I do 😂😂😂.

Mornings with Johnny have become something of a comfort. Sometimes, they go for runs, others, they just stay home, sip coffee, and binge watch some show they’ve already seen a hundred times over. Today’s a bad day, though, and so when Johnny springs up the steps, she doesn’t rush to meet him. Instead, she stays locked in the bathroom, the shower cranked up to its hottest setting, and grits her teeth as she feels her control over her solid and gaseous form battling for dominance.

Johnny doesn’t say anything. He just sits on the other side of the door and stays quiet. If she could, Monica would cry, both out of frustration and gratitude; she doesn’t even want to picture the mess she’d be without him.

Johnny understands. More than just about anyone on the planet. The fear, the uncertainty, the apprehension, the need to be in control of your emotions every second of every day because if you don’t, not only could you hurt someone, but you could also just fly away, never again to be seen.

There’s only so much they can do about it. Nick put in a call to Stark, who put in a call to T’Challa, and they’ve all been working together to find something to keep her contained should she ever truly lose control. 

But it’s different, more complex than it was to help Johnny maintain his form when he first got his powers. Because Monica isn’t just heat or electricity or even power. She’s the composition of a seemingly endless number of energies. It’s something they’ve never seen before, and they can’t hope to contain something they don’t understand.

It’s been three years. Three years and she still hasn’t gotten a grip on herself. Three years since she’s last allowed herself to look in the mirror because the very memory of her reflection is enough to send her into a panic.

“Tony says you won’t answer the phone”, Johnny muses from the other end of the door. Monica crosses her non-legs and presses her non-hands against her head, but his voice comes through all the same. “I think you need to see somebody.” The usual humor in his voice is gone now, and, if anything, that just makes her feel worse. 

“I’m fine”, she calls out, voice mystic and ethereal in a way it only is when her power’s becoming too much for her to keep contained. She’s heard reporters described it as goddess-like; she thinks it sounds like the stuff of nightmares. 

“You’re getting worse”, Johnny pushes. If he were anyone else, Monica would ignore him or even leave in further pursuit of solitude.

But it’s like she said. He’s the only one that really understands.

_ “At this point, I don’t think it’s physical” _ , her mother had said months ago, fingers intertwined with Carol’s. Monica hadn’t had anything to say to that, but she knew she had a point. They’d employed some of the greatest minds in design and tech to help her, and none had succeeded. All that’s left to really consider is Monica, who’s been riddled with anxiety and depression since her accidents. 

_ Of course, it isn’t physical. _

It takes a few hours. By then, the water’s probably long since run cold, but to Monica, it still feels warm as the droplets dissolve into her. Shakily, she rises to her feet, twists the knobs until the showerhead’s dry, and steps out of the tub. When she opens the bathroom door, Johnny’s sitting there, patiently. Human, of course, because he knows how much it comforts her in times like these. He smiles, eyes tired yet bright, and hops to his feet.

“So what’ll it be today?”, Johnny trills, skipping alongside her. “We bumming it out on the couch, or you wanna go all cosmic and kick some ass?”   
Monica smiles and half-heartedly rolls her eyes. She wraps her arms around herself and floats to the kitchen. “Is there even any ass to kick today? It’s Tuesday.”

Johnny hops onto the kitchen counter, twists open the jar of cookies that exists more for guests than herself because she never eats, and tosses a graham cracker into his mouth. “You’re literally insulting the world of crime right now. They’re like the mail, rain, sleet, or snow.”   
Monica just huffs and hovers above him, watching the curve of his arm, the twitch of his fingers, the rise and fall of his shoulders. “Can we stay in?”

Johnny nods, wiping his hands with a towel as a grin splits his face. 

It’s always so easy with him. Nick, Stark, hell, even her moms, they would’ve been far too happy to point out that it’s been months since she’s so much as stopped a cat burglar, but Johnny. Johnny gets it.

They wind up camped out on the couch, Johnny on the floor, Monica hovering, horizontal, above the couch. It’s a show about pirates, and if Monica wasn’t so thoroughly exhausted from this morning’s breakdown, she thinks she’d like it. As it stands, she can do little more than just follow each line of dialogue and count each time someone gets stabbed or says the word “fuck”. They’re about halfway through the season finale when Johnny suddenly pauses the TV, rolls over onto his back, and stares up at her. 

“We could go flying”, he offers softly. It’s something they’ve discussed before, on more than one occasion. Each time, she’s turned it down, waving it off with a, “Maybe later” and a not-so-subtle subject change. But she’s feeling both burnt out and restless. Maybe flying could do her some good. 

“Catch me if I fall?”, Monica asks quietly, and Johnny says, “Yeah”, even though they both know he wouldn’t be able to. 

With a snap of his fingers, Johnny’s entire body engulfs in flames. He cranes his neck, groans, and propels himself off the floor, darting out the open window much slower than he normally would. He pauses on the other side, whistling pleasantly as Monica floats up to him; he slips a hand in hers, smiles when he notices it’s semi-solid, and tugs her along. 

She’s only done this a few times before. Even when she’s fighting, she usually sticks close to the ground, zipping to and from electrical boxes or telephone wires to throw off her opponent, but never going higher than the average city apartment building. The only other time she’s done this was...well…

She doesn’t do it often.

But it’s a good night tonight; the air has that perfect springtime feel to the air, the sky is void of clouds, and the streets are silent, save for the occasional dog barking. For once, Monica kinda wants to feel driftless.

Her hand goes light and airy and phases through Johnny’s hand. She kicks, wills some of the heat within her to the soles of her feet, and propels herself forward. Johnny makes a noise behind her, but Monica just continues on, diving out of the way of a billboard with ease, and smiles.

“Are we racing?”, Johnny asks when he catches up to her. His eyes are on fire, but she can see that there’s a light in them, a new light, and it makes her feel good to know that she’s the cause of it. 

She’s nervous, in the way that she only is after a particularly bad day. But she’s excited, too. And it’s been a while since Monica could really say that.

So she decides, yes, this is a race. And once she decides that, it’s like a root system of choices has grown before her. Monica gives him a small smile. “If you can keep up.” The words have just barely left her mouth before she puts more power in her kicks and streams forward. 

“All right”, Johnny giggles as they’re loop-de-looping around a bridge. “Where are we going?”

Monica licks her lips, eyes darting about the city landscape. As she takes in each bridge, each building, each monument, she feels her energy growing hotter, pulsing out waves of heat and light in her wake. She flies faster, her smile turning devious as she looks back at him. “From the Chelseas”, she says, tasing the electricity flooding her mouth. “To the Kips.”

Johnny’s grin stretches wider. “All fucking right.” The fire composing his body swirls and turns a bright blue as he charges up and streams ahead of her.

Monica hums. She dashes down, bobbing and weaving through the stream of rush-hour traffic until she comes upon a sewer. She inhales, focuses on the feel of her energy churning and tunnelling, and giggles as her body turns intangible; she passes through the sewer cover with ease, navigating her way through the tunnels until she comes upon an opening and suddenly finds herself hovering before a beach.

She looks up just in time to see a streak of orange darting over her, ecstatic laughter trailing afterwards. Monica shakes her head, says, “Not today, Firestarter”, and shoots after him. Waterside is coming into view, and, when she draws nearer to the lake, she can feel water spraying against her ankles. She laughs, catching up to Johnny just as they reach their imaginary finish line.

“I’ll call it a tie”, Johnny offers. He circles around her, eyeing her curiously. “You feeling okay?”   
Monica grins. “Amazing.” Tingly. Charged up. Manic, she thinks is an apt description. Johnny looks at her like he recognizes this, the chaotic energy of his composition stabilizing ever so slightly, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s probably confused, unsure if this is better than the frozen being she’d been a few hours prior.

She doesn’t linger on it. Instead, she wraps her arms around herself, looks down at the bustling Plaza beneath her, and smiles. “That offer to kick some ass still up?”

Johnny hesitates. He floats so that he blocks her view and chuckles uneasily. “Well, it’s like you said. It’s a Tuesday.”   
“Ass-kicking isn’t mandated to certain days of the week.”   
Johnny pouts. “Come on.” He goes to wrap an arm around Monica, only to grit his teeth when he realizes she’s lost all form of solidity. “We got a perfectly good TV back at the crib. We still gotta binge-watch Twilight, remember? You love Twilight!”

“No, Johnny,  _ you _ love Twilight. I wanted to watch Buffy.” They go back and forth like that for a while, no doubt catching some news’ van’s attention, until a surge of electrical energy suddenly pulses down the street. It does little to Johnny, aside from pushing him back, but it runs right through Monica, erratic electrons bombarding her molecules and electrifying her.

“What the hell?” Johnny’s eyes flare red as he spins in a circle, looking for a source.

Monica’s about to tell him where, the energy calling out to her like a beacon, when a man with brown, feathery wings suddenly curves past them, a frantic Captain America clinging to his back. She and Johnny exchange a look, then follow them. 

Arguably, it’s probably not best that she fight right now. She’s running mostly on adrenaline now, and it’s not gonna last for much longer. But she feels  _ good _ , better than she has in months, years, even. She kinda wants to see it through.

Even before they arrive, it’s clear what’s happened. The neighborhood transformer blew, and, instead of short circuiting, it’s sending currents of electricity throughout the city. In and of itself, this isn’t too troublesome. Monica’s handled her fair share of electrical mishaps, but this isn’t just any other mishap. This transformer was designed by HammerTech, and whatever shortcuts the company took caused a reaction that’s causing the energy to expand rather than disperse.

“Tell me that’s not nearly as bad as it looks”, Johnny says as they catch up with Team Cap.

Steve huffs out a laugh, staring umimpressedly at the spasming transformer before them. “Wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t, would it?”   
Johnny just sighs. Sam grins, wings flapping excitedly, and tosses an arm over his shoulder. “Come on, sparky. I thought you were always up for a challenge.”

Monica’s eyes look beyond them, to the man and woman redirecting the panicking crowd of people elsewhere. The man, she recognizes as Bucky. 

But the woman. The woman she’s never seen before. Red seeps from her pores and trickles from her fingers, an unyielding current of psyche Monica’s never had the experience of knowing.

She’s not like Monica. Not exactly. But she’s not like anyone else she’s never known.

The woman, with a complexion a few shades lighter than her own, twists and jerks her hands, clenching them into fists and pushing the tide of civilians out of harm’s way as another pulse of electricity runs through the neighborhood. Monica breathes, and the woman turns around, a loose strand of hair slipping free of her mask; the woman blinks, ever so softly, and watches Monica with half-lidded brown eyes filled with a calm that feels disorienting amongst the chaos of everything else.

“...Monica? What do you think?”   
Monica averts her gaze back to Steve. Johnny’s watching her again, worry evident in his eyes. She purses her lips, blinks, and says, “Think about what?”

Sam and Steve exchange a look. “Energy and electricity, that’s your thing, isn’t it?”, Sam asks. Monica nods, hesitant, and he continues on. “Okay. So…”   
They all look at Monica, expectantly. Which is kind of annoying because energy and electricity were never her “thing”. Aviation, aerodynamics, that, that was her thing, and she spent years studying and perfecting her knowledge of it. With this shit, it’s basically like a sixth sense; there’s no real work in it. 

But now’s not the time for a pity-party. Monica just places her hands on her hips, pleased to see they’ve grown solid once more, and exhales. “There’s too much...energy”, she settles, “for us to just shut it off. We need to redirect it.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Redirect? What, like with a hanger or something?”

Bucky chuckles as he and the woman join them. “Probably something bigger than a hammer, Stevie.”

Steve narrows his eyes at him.

Monica turns her attention to the woman, then away and to the transformer, and thinks  _ Definitely bigger than a hanger. _ She clenches her hands at her sides and startles when she feels Johnny elbowing her in her stomach.

“Don’t even think about it”, he mutters.

Monica just huffs. “I’m not.”   
She is.

“Okay.” She waves her hand, silencing the banter between everyone, and points to the transformer. “It’s gonna be close, but I think we can pull this off with some jumper cables. Those of the flesh, steer clear and handle the crowd.” She looks to the woman and wavers. 

“I’m Wanda”, the woman says, offering her the tiniest of smiles. 

Monica swallows. “Monica. I...uh...Well, Johnny’s immune to shocks, but he’s not great at conducting.” Johnny looks at her like she’s betrayed him, but Monica just pats his arm.

“I’m not immune”, Wanda says, regaining Monica’s attention once more. She crosses her arms over her chest and shrugs. “But I think I can work with the redirect.”   
“Oh. Good.” Monica smiles and hesitates for a moment. Then, clearing her throat and propelling herself into the air, she calls out, “Let’s get to work!”

There’s an mechanic’s shop around the corner, so getting the cables is easy enough. It’s finding a good spot to attach them that’s the problem. The closer she gets to the building, the stronger the currents are, and the more likely they are to fry the wiring. 

“We’re either gonna need stronger cables!”, Johnny shouts over the sound of thrumming electricity. “Or to knock down that building!” 

“The problem isn’t the building, it’s the power.” Monica swivels around the building, eyes narrowed as the strongest source of electricity makes itself known to her. It’s an antennae atop the building. Now, she’s not much of an expert in designs, but she doesn’t need to be to know that in and of itself was a terrible decision. The building’s ten years old, at the very least, and it’s a wonder an accident hadn’t occurred sooner.

“Monica”, Steve calls, his voice bouncing around the city and into her ears. “What’s our game plan?”

“Yeah, Nicki”, Johnny says, a daring tone to his voice. “What is the game plan?” He already knows it even before Monica starts towards the antennae. Sacrificial-bordering-on-suicidal tendencies is kind of the hallmark of the Avengers, though, so she doubts he’s too surprised. 

“I’m handling it”, Monica says as she wraps one hand around the antennae and positions the other to the sky. “This is my thing now”, she whispers to herself before inhaling deeply. Then, summoning all the energy waiting in the center of her being, she sucks the electricity out of the antennae and aims it towards the sky. But not before it runs clears through her, electrifying every inch of her mass before shorting out and zapping skyward.

. . .

She wakes up a little while later. She can feel gravel sifting underneath her, and that only stirs her even further because it takes a lot for her to solidify after high-stress situations. 

Monica groans, her eyes blurring as they struggle to focus. When they do, it’s to the sight of a worried, if a bit annoyed, pair of eyes above her. Brown eyes with currents of red coursing through them. Monica blinks sluggishly and stares at the red, noting the energy as soft and personable, and yet, cautious and veiled, too . The remaining fog in her head clears, and her brain supplies her the name “Wanda”. 

“Hi.”

Wanda startles. Then, her eyes softening ever so slightly, she says, “Hey”. Before she can say more, Monica sits up. Wanda averts her eyes, scooting backward so’s to give her space, and clears her throat. “The, uh, the transformer’s powered down. Good job on that.”   
Monica rubs a knuckle into the bruise forming on her stomach. Right. There was a busted transformer.

“She nearly got herself killed”, Johnny murmurs. “I wouldn’t call that ‘good’.”   
Wanda rolls her eyes. “Yeah”, she says, turning to face her once more. “We could probably do without you risking your life every time you help out…” Monica reaches out, her movements slow and off-balanced, and briefly brushes her fingers against Wanda’s. A brief touch, that’s all it is, but it’s evidently enough to cause a sort of reaction, their respective energies seeping from their skin and into the other’s. 

Wanda snatches her hand away, recoiling with a visible shudder as her irises flare dark red. Likewise, Monica’s burn the color of a lightbulb just before it shorts out, and her body goes intangible, hovering a mere inch above ground. 

“I’ll put in a call”, Steve murmurs from behind them. Wanda pulses waves of red beneath her, darting to Sam and Steve’s side in an instant. Monica remains where she is, her head still swimming, until she feels the familiar presence of Johnny approaching her. 

“Come on”, he urges gently. “On your feet.”

Absentmindedly, Monica does as he says. The Quinjet arrives to pick them up, as she’s ascending the ramp, she can’t help but notice Wanda’s eyes on her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and see y'all next Monday!


	3. Checkup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick trip to the doctor's (i.e., a visit from a pair of sorcerers at the Avengers Compound).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this is Strange's debut chapter. It's a very brief introduction, but he'll be back in, like, two chapters. Let me know what you think of him.  
Also, all Avengers are on friendly terms.

The call turned out to be to Tony, who then called Strange, exchanged a few scathing remarks, and told him to haul ass to the Compound.

By the time he makes it there, it’s three in the morning, and the Team’s just barely awake.

“Amateurs”, Tony huffs.

Steve just rolls his eyes from where he’s sitting and says, “We aren’t all gifted in the art of insomnia, Tony”.

“Still don’t get why it’s taking him this long”, Tony mutters, steadily ignoring him. “We’ve got two metahumans who just fucked up their powers, and he decides to take his sweet time getting here.”

“He’s Sorcerer Supreme”, Sam’s quick to interject. He smirks as Bucky’s arms wrap tighter around him and snuggles closer to his chest. “Pretty sure he’s got better things to do than make sure we haven’t killed each other every other second.”   
Monica narrows her eyes and just watches the Team. “Are they always like this?”

Johnny shrugs and shows her his teeth. “You came on a good night.” He’s in his human form, but even now, it’s easy to detect the energy residing within his cells. He elbows her, ignoring the fact that his elbow passes right through her, and cocks his head to the side. “How you feeling?”

“Sleepy”, she admits, then, chancing a glance in Wanda’s direction, adds, “I feel weird”.

Johnny purses his lips, not noticing the shift in her gaze. Then, willing a smile to his face, he says, “We could have had Edward”.

“I’d rather have Jacob.”   
Bucky lifts his head and says, “They’re both creeps”.

Monica smirks. She looks around the dining lounge, taking in the loose set of everyone’s shoulders and the blanket of tranquility that’s overtaken the room. It’s been years since that night she first got her powers. Back then, the Avengers were still reeling from the Accords nonsense, and the Compound was nothing but a barren wasteland, a forgotten, abandoned cove of camaraderie. Now, she looks around, and it feels like a second home.

Monica looks up from her hands and over to where Wanda’s sitting on the rug. She holds her gaze for but a moment before looking away.

Not soon after, Stephen and Wong arrive.

“‘Spectrum’”, Stephen says, looking her up and down. He grins and shakes his head. “Finally! Someone with some ingenuity.” He and Monica fistbump, and Wanda Wong roll their eyes before they all disappear into an operating room.

“We’d’ve been here sooner”, Wong says as he’s examining Monica through some type of orange shield thing. “But there was a thing with an octopus, and we needed to stop at this antique clock shop and...” He trails off, eyes darting between Monica and Wanda before settling on Stephen’s. A look passes between them, and he nods. “How long have you two known each other?”   
Wanda folds her hands in her lap and gives a bleak smile. “All of six glorious hours.” She throws Monica a glance, shifts on her bed, then mutters, “But there was that other time”.

Monica frowns. “There was?”   
“When you first had your accident”, Wanda replies, twiddling her thumbs. “You were...checking out a lot, and your family wanted me to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

She just continues to look at her. If she’s being honest, her memory of her first year as Spectrum is a mess. She spent a third of it ridden with anxiety, another third depressed and locked away in the garage back in Louisiana, and the rest falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole on Netflix. Dimly, though, she does recall her dad standing before her bed and asking how she’d feel about seeing a specialist.

Dimly.

“Two meetings isn’t enough to establish an energial connection like this”, Wong murmurs before delving into a back and forth conversation with Stephen. Monica looks to Wanda and raises her iridescent eyebrows, but Wanda won’t look at her. 

“Okay, ladies. Here’s my prognosis.” Stephen sits back in his chair and holds out his hands, his bracelet of Tao symbols slinking back into the sleeve of his sweater. “You’re not dying.”   
Monica tilts her head to the side and says, “Yeah, no shit.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Wanda smirk and feels a smile of its own threatening to form. 

“There’s nothing like this in the books”, Wong adds, folding his arms over his chest. “But from what I’m seeing, it doesn’t look like it means to do any harm. On the contrary, I think.” He closes his eyes and cocks his head to the side. When he opens his eyes once more, they’re no less confused but at the same time, certain. “I think it’s meant to help you.”   
“Okay but what is ‘it’”?, Wanda asks, sounding exasperated. 

Monica nods and looks between Wong and Stephen. “Yeah. I mean, is it a parasite, is it a curse, you gotta give us something.” As lovely as it is to know this thing between them isn’t harmful, she’d like a more in-depth explanation. She’s had enough surprises to last a lifetime.

“It looks like a piece of string”, Stephen says and pulls a candy bar out of his pocket. “Like tinsel but...glowy.” He takes a bite of his chocolate bar and hums. “And shimmery.”

_ Well, that’s not at all helpful. _ Monica floats off her bed and over to the window, staring out at the grassy fields before her. She never truly feels grounded or contained, and, given the state of her body, she doubts she ever will. But she feels different now. Not steady but...like she’d been adrift at sea and finally came upon another survivor. 

“We’re gonna run some tests”, Stephen says, folding his legs as he floats in the air. “We’re gonna run through a number of potential ailments/conditions, propose a cross-sectional analysis with some friends, both onworld and offworld, and see what we come up with.”

He and Wong shoo them out of the room, saying they need to properly look over their findings. Monica hovers by the door for a moment, shifting between solid and gaseous, before turning to look at Wanda. Slowly, Wanda returns her gaze. She reaches out and brushes her hand up against Monica’s, watching the way their respective energies reach out to one another. She looks into Monica’s eyes, breathes, and walks away.

. . .

Monica spends the night in the Compound. At first, she practices some morphing exercises. Then she fills out her portion of the field report. Then, in the minutes just before sunrise, she types Wanda Maximoff into Google search.

In her chest, she feels something eager and wanting pressing towards the screen.


	4. Attraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weeks after their initial encounter, Monica runs into Wanda again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! So two quick notes. One, the Maximoffs were born with their powers and never worked for HYDRA in this AU. Not very relevant to this chapter but I just wanted to clear that up.  
Second, I'm doing NaNoWriMo! It's my first time participating in it, and I kinda decided to do it at the last minute, so between that, fanfiction, and schoolwork, you might be seeing less of me. I'm gonna try to stay on top of everything, but if a week passes without an update, it's not because the fic's abandoned. I promise, we're gonna see this all the way through.  
And on that note, let's get to the fic.

In the following weeks, she takes to Avenging. Not everyday like she knows the world wants her to but often, two, three times a week. 

She stops an eighteen-wheeler from crashing into a cement-carrier on the Brooklyn Bridge, saves a dozen or so turtles from a burning aquarium (long story), and signs some autographs outside a middle school. 

All and all, she feels better than she has in a long time.

Then she thinks of Wanda, and, well, she doesn’t feel worse, but she does feel like she’s missing something.

“That’s some soulmate shit”, Johnny says, blowing a ring of fire underneath his bowl of marshmallows. He spins a fork around the resulting mush, then scoops some into his mouth, nodding at her as he watches her work at a Rubix Cube. “I read about it online once.”

“Because that’s reliable”, Monica says, rolling her eyes. Nonetheless, she bookmarks a page about soulmates on her phone, then tosses her cube in the air and suspends it in an orb of zero point energy. “I’m serious, though. I think she could be the key to helping me figure this out.”   
Johnny lies down on his side, letting his eyebrows combust into flames as he watches her hover towards him. “You aren’t gonna meddle, are you?”

“‘Course I’m gonna meddle, who I look like?” She hovers over the armrest, one leg tossed over the other, and purses her lips in concentration. “I just wanna ask around, see if anyone’s had something like this happen to them.” Her eyes catch light, and she turns to face him. “Hey, Ororo just made it back from space, didn’t she? If anybody knows anything about this, it’d be her. You could-”   
“Before you ask.” Johnny tosses a fireball at her, unaffected when it merely absorbs into her. “I’m not asking him.”   
“Why not?”   
“He don’t like me.” When Monica just continues to watch him, he sighs and murmurs, “Shuri says I remind him of his cousin”.

“Really?” She narrows her eyes and looks at him. “I don’t see it.”   
“I know, right? And anyway.” He scoops some more of his marshmallow mess into his mouth, then points the spoon at her. “Why don’t you just ask Wanda?”

Monica purses her lips and remains quiet. It’s not necessarily embarrassment, but... as far as first impressions go, theirs was nothing short of disastrous. The next time she sees her, she wants to have at least a little control over her form. “Strange and Wong think it’s like a chemical reaction”, she murmurs, and Johnny rolls his eyes, pushing himself off the couch and walking into the kitchen. “What do you think?”

“I think you should call your girlfriend.”   
Monica lowers her fingers to the electrical socket behind her, snickering at the shout Johnny releases.

. . .

As luck would have it, Monica runs into Wanda during a thwarted back-robbery a few days later. She’s dusting some of the remaining static off of her when a tingle emerges in the back of her skull. She turns around, her feet floating from the ground at the sight of Wanda descending from the sky.

“Looks like I missed all the fun”, Wanda says, watching as a scowling woman is pushed into the back of a squad car.

Monica watches her for a second. Then, before she can stop herself from asking, “Aren’t bank robberies a little under your paygrade?”

Wanda just shrugs, red trickling throughout her irises as she turns to interrogate the officer. “Aren’t they under yours?”

The streetlights above Monica flickers. She grits her teeth, awkwardly remaining where she is as Wanda talks to the woman in police colors.

Admittedly, heists aren’t usually her thing. She’s more of the disaster-preventing sort, burning buildings, capsizing yachts, collapsing bridges, that kind of thing. But Steve had personally asked her to take care of this one. 

Her features crease into a frown at the thought because there’s no way  _ that  _ was just a coincidence. 

_ So fucking nosey _ , she texts to him, and Steve just texts her back a cheeky smiley emoji. She snorts, then slips her phone into one of the pockets on her suit just in time to see Wanda walking back up to her.

“Hey”, she says. The wind ruffles the ends of her scarf, and she grabs hold of them, blinking softly as she watches Monica. “I was wondering if you wanted to talk.”

_ Small world _ , Monica thinks. She places one hand on her hip and nods. The move doesn’t feel nearly as smooth as she wishes it did. “That’s probably a good idea.”   
Wanda nods, then twirls her fingers, summoning a field of red energy to her fingers and propelling herself into the air. Monica takes flight and floats beside her, swallowing the electricity building in her mouth.

“I heard about your accident”, Wanda says over the wind once they’ve reached the Manhattan Bridge. They sit along one of the suspenders, their legs dangling over the edge as they stare at the traffic streaming down the road. “You’re very brave, you know.”   
Monica just shrugs. “Somebody had to be.” There were too many people trapped and not nearly enough people willing to help. Her mom, Maria, used to say the world needed more than full time heroes, that sometimes, an everyday hero could do just fine. Monica would have never thought she’d fit the bill, but, then again, she doubts any hero does.

“You sacrificed everything to save those people”, Wanda continues, eyes curiously blank as she stares out at a ship crossing beneath the bridge. “Even the ones you didn’t know.”

Monica’s chest grows thick and tight. She can still hear the screams, can still feel the aching burn of her skin melting off her bones. “They were just doing their jobs. It wouldn't have been right for them to die, just cause somebody decided to cut corners.”

The conversation idles then, Wanda watching Monica out of the corner of her eye every so often. Just when Monica’s gathered the nerve to say something, Wanda murmurs, “I think I know why your energy’s so...erratic.” Monica raises her eyebrows, and Wanda smirks. “Strange and Wong’ll kill me for saying this, but I don’t think it’s physical.” 

A tired smile creeps onto Monica’s face. “I keep hearing that.”

It’s been a while since she’s seen her moms. She’s not mad, necessarily. They don’t treat her like she could explode at any minute (which, at this point, she’d actually prefer). Mostly, they just look at her, this sort of guilt in their eyes. Maria cries a lot, and Carol’s quiet, all nervous energy and rabbity eyes. And then there’s Nick, who’s done his damnedest to make sure nobody, politician or super, could get close enough to start shit.

She knows it’s because they care, it’s just...it’s exhausting to be around them, sometimes.

Her dad, though. He’s always been a little confused about the whole hero thing, but he took her transformation with an open-mind. 

Between the four of them, they all agree that her lack of control over her powers isn’t as clear cut as the doctors suggest.

“Monica.” When she turns to face Wanda, she finds her eyes glowing red, alternating between dark and light, and wisps of crimson falling from her body like pollen in the spring. She lifts a hand, apprehensively, and Monica nods. When Wanda’s hand falls upon hers, it’s like the world goes monochromatic, spirals of black and white encompassing their bodies. And then, like a leak in a dam, color, all vibrant hues and dancing shades, spilling from their fingertips into each other’s bodies. Monica blinks and feels her form shift over to gas as Wanda’s shifts to pure energy.

“You’re hurting”, Wanda says, her voice echoey and ancient. She lifts her hand to drag it up Monica’s forearm. 

She knows it. Better yet, she feels it, especially when they’re like this. It’s like someone’s peeled back her skin and taken a taser to her raw nerves, an all new, electrifying pain spreading throughout her entire being. It’s a feeling she’s known since the explosion, but exposed like this with Wanda, it’s an all new sort of sensation.

“ _ You’re  _ hurting”, Monica says back, and she startles, surprised at her words until she realizes their truth. Wanda’s pain crashes over her like a tidal wave, all pressure and unrelenting where Monica’s is fluid and encompassing. Feelings like  _ loss  _ and  _ betrayal  _ and  _ innocence gone before it could even taken root _ . It makes her shudder, but she doesn’t pull away. On the contrary, she actually draws closer, the energy in her chest blossoming like a flower as their energies continue to seep into one another. 

And then it’s over because Wanda’s drawing back, teeth gritted and eyes flaring an angry red. Monica frowns and reaches out for her, but Wanda just swallows and flies off her perch, putting space between them. 

“You did it again!”, Wanda hisses.

Monica frowns, a defensive note to her voice as she rises to float above the suspender. “Last I checked, it takes two to dance, Wanda, and I wasn’t exactly dancing with myself.” Wanda scoffs and turns to fly away, but Monica floats to block her path. “Hey. You said you wanted to talk.”  _ You wanted to help _ , she thinks, just the faintest tinge of disappointment coloring the words. 

“You’re depressed”, Wanda says, her tone stiff and curt. “And borderline suicidal, from what I’ve seen. You need a shrink.”   
“I was doing my job”, Monica grits out, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I already have a shrink.”   
“It doesn’t count if you never see them.”   
...True. But that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. She draws in a breath for six beats, noting each respiratory organ as she does so, then lets it out, the way her dad told her to. Then, feeling some of the heat within her dampen, she bites her lip and says, “I didn’t mean to look. I’m sorry”.

Wanda keeps her lips pursed. She looks at Monica out of the corner of her eye and sighs. “Whatever. Just...stay out of my head.”

At that, Monica raises an eyebrow. “So you it’s okay for you to be in other people’s heads but not the other way around?”

Wanda turns to face her, floating in a reclining position as she smirks. “Them’s the rules.” 

“You know, you’ve been an Avenger way longer than me.” She places a hand on her hip and gives her a glare with very little heat behind it. “You might wanna think about the example you’re setting.” 

Wanda rolls her eyes. “You’re not a child, Monica.” 

“Well, technically, this is a new body, so in a way-” 

“Shush. Just…” Her smile is small but very much there. She sits up, legs criss cross applesauce, and heaves out a gentle sigh. “I do wanna help. But…”   
“...Stay out of your head”, Monica finishes softly. “Gotcha.”

The last of the remaining tension in Wanda’s energies fade. Eventually, they find their way back to their perches. They watch the sun set on the city.

The distance between them screams at Monica well after the stars have risen.


	5. Collapse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She still has her bad days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry for the short chapter. I'm editing this as I go, and my schedule's kinda hectic right now, so I'm feeling kinda swamped.  
Anyway, I had fun writing this one, even if it is short, and I hope y'all like it, too.

_ -sphenoid sinus, _

_ nasal cavity,  _

_ thyroid cartilage, _

_ trachea, _

_ diaphragm, _

_ lobar bronchus- _

Monica breathes, wiping her hands shakily over her face as she comes to the end of her recitement. She feels a sense of wary accomplishment at the feel of her lungs drawing in her air and sloops forward in her seat, distractedly tracing her fingers over the cornrows running up and down her scalp.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve...I should’ve known that-.”   
Monica nods. Sharply, she sits up, meets Stephen’s gaze for the first time since she’d gone spectrum, and plasters a wavering smile to her face. “It’s fine. It just...it sneaks up on me sometimes.”

Stephen gives a brief nod of his head. “Nick said you’d been having anxiety issues.”   
“It’s not anxiety”, Monica mutters. “I just get...freaked out, every once in a while.”   
And by “once in a while”, she means at least four times a week. By the look Stephen gives her, it’s clear he suspects this, but neither he nor she comments on it.

“I could recommend something”, Stephen says softly. “I know you’re not keen on medication or therapy, but there’s yoga and meditation and herbs that can-”   
“I’m fine, really, Stephen, I am.” She presses her back to the wall and forces herself to take in another breath. “I just...I can’t go back on another rig. You know that, right?”   
They’d been in the lounge room, watching some cooking show or another, when a preview of the news had come on, detailing an Avengers Appreciation ceremony aboard another oil rig. The newscasters hadn’t said so, but it was implied that an Avenger or two would stop by during the ceremony. And given its location, it was practically a given that Spectrum would be among the Avengers there.

Monica doesn’t regret her decision. She regrets the consequences, yes, almost daily. But if given the chance, she’d certain her choice to stay and help, rather than look out for herself, would always remain the same.

That being said, the thought of being put in that position once again is enough to give her a “minor” anxiety attack.

“No one expects you to do anything you’re not comfortable with”, Stephen says. Before them, the T.V. sits blank, and the silence stretching from it makes Monica feel tense and antsy. “Nicki. We’ve all been where you are. We get it.”   
She shoves her hands into her armpits. She hears him. She hears what he’s saying, she does, it’s just...she also hears what the public says.

Stephen’s hand settles over hers, light brown over dark, and Monica inhales. She rocks back and forward and breathes, she breathes, noting all the components of her left lung as quickly as they can come to her.

“You’re gonna be fine”, he says. The words sound far away, and Monica chases them, seeking solace in the vowels and consonants until she feels herself steadying once more.

. . .

The ceremony passes, and Monica stays within the Compound. She watches the broadcasting of it, despite everyone’s suggestion she do the exact opposite of that, and winds up locking herself in a closet, breathing erratic and inefficient as the sound of the T.V. continues to filter in.

She doesn’t know how long she sits there, feeling like death’s cloud has settled above her. But sometime after, the door creaks open, and a brown eye emerges within the slit that forms.

Wanda stares at Monica, and Monica stares back. Without a word, she shakily pushes the door open, and Wanda crawls into the closet with her.

“Are you all right?”, Wanda asks lowly. Monica shakes her head “no”, and Wanda nods. She pulls the door closed, plunging the closet into darkness save for their glowing bodies. “Hey. Look at me.” Wanda pulses, a wave of red spilling from her chest and over Monica, and Monica cries, setting the closet and all its contents on fire with her choked sobs.

She doesn’t calm down until well after one of the Compound’s experimental Emergency Bots arrives to retrieve them both and escort them outside. And once she gets a good look at all the wide, open space surrounding her, she starts to hyperventilate, collapsing on herself like a dying star until Wanda scoops her up in her arms and takes her to the old storm cellar.

It’s dark, and it’s cold, and it’s damp.

Monica presses her body against the wall and breathes in.

Wanda, remaining at a safe distance from her, asks, once more, “Are you okay?”

Monica never does answer her, but she thinks it comes across anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	6. Evolution

“Wait a second, back up. You actually met Johnny Storm?”

Monica pauses, averting her gaze to where her cousin Ashton sits, staring starry-eyed up at her. She grins, flakes of fire slipping between her teeth, and playfully shoves at him. “Yeah, we’re roommates, kiddo.”

Ashton just smiles and whispers, “Oh, my God, they were roommates.”

“Okay, so if he’s made of fire”, Frank says from where he’s helping Carol make a dorito/beef casserole. “Why didn’t he just firebend the comet away?”   
“I don’t think that’s how firebending works. Or comets, for that matter”, Monica murmurs, lifting Ash off the couch and throwing him into the loveseat. “That and he’s an asshole so-”   
Ash pouts, picking up a Pokemon plushie and throwing it at her. “So you can cuss, but I can’t?”, he points out, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I have a license to cuss”, she retorts matter-of-factly. She throws her arm up over the back of the couch and hums. Her phone vibrates in her pocket, and she falters, thinking back to her conversation with Wanda and the fact that her number now sits amongst her contacts. 

They’ve been texting for a few weeks now. Nothing serious but it always makes a warm feeling settle in her stomach. 

“So what happened next?”, Carol calls out, bring her out of her thoughts. Monica just lets her mouth hang open, and Carol smiles. “Come on, don’t leave us hanging.” Then, as if something’s just occurred to her, she looks up from where she’s pouring ground beef into the massive glass bowl and raises an eyebrow at Monica. “On second thought, put that on hold. What’s with the heart eyes?”

Monica bites down a smile and wraps her arms around herself. Despite herself, she feels herself growing lighter and floating off the couch. Ash cocks his head to the side and watches her curiously. “What are heart eyes?”   
“It means she’s got a crush on somebody.” Frank grins, tosses a dorito into his mouth, and asks, “Is it an Avenger?”

The radio in the corner speeds up, the song taking on an almost chipmunk quality before Monica quickly resumes control and returns it to its normal pitch. “Her name’s Wanda”, she says, giving her dad’s shoulder a brief squeeze as she joins them in the kitchen. She rolls her eyes then, shaking her head as she adds, “Her super name is Scarlet Witch”.

“Ah. The one with the…” He does some hand gestures that mimic Wanda’s, and Monica stifles a laugh.    
“Yeah, that’s the one.”   
“Wait.” Carol shakes her third bag of doritos into the bowl and raises an eyebrow. “The one from the electric thing last month?”

“Uh huh.” Monica leans forward with a spoon at the ready to sample a taste, snatching her hand back once Frank and Carol both slap at her. “Come on, I’m starving!”

“You don’t even have a stomach”, Frank says with an eyeroll. Then, briefly glancing at where his phone rests on the counter, he says to Carol, “Marie’s on her way back”.

Ma nods, then looks back up at Monica and smiles, her own eyes glistening a soft yellow. “So you guys dating or what?”   
“No. We’re just talkin’.” She rolls onto her side and watches as her dad places the bowl in the oven. “Something happened, though, with the electric thing.” She shakes her head, snorting as her late night internet scrolling with Johnny comes to mind. “Johnny think it’s a soulmate thing.”

Carol and Frank snicker and both say, “Oh, my God, they were soulmates”.

Momma walks into the kitchen, cradling several bags of groceries within her arms. As she walks by, she kisses Carol, bumps hips with Frank, and makes a kissy face up at Monica. Then she sniffs, takes in the bags of doritos on the counter and scowls at Carol. “Baby”, she says as Carol takes some of the bags from her arms. “We’re not all superhumans with ridiculous metabolisms, some of us actually have to watch what we eat.” 

Carol just grins and says, “It’s for Ash!” 

“Then why are you using the Party Bowl?” 

“Hey”, Frank interjects, pointing a finger at Monica. “Nicki found her soulmate.” 

Maria’s eyes widen. “Oooh, is it that Wanda girl?” She takes a seat at the table, crosses one leg over the other, and nods. “I like her. She’s got good energy.” She pauses for a beat, then winks at Monica and says, “See what I did there?”

Monica just rolls her eyes, floating down to sit opposite her, and says, “Yeah, mom, I got it”.

She settles in, watching as Ash careens into the kitchen and just takes a moment to watch. It’s been a while since things have been this easy. She’s been home for hours, and no one’s cried or even gone a little teary-eyed. She doesn’t know what prompted the change, but she appreciates it.

“Seriously, though”, Carol says later, as they sit alone in the kitchen, eating their servings of casserole. “Wanda. How is that going?”

Monica spoons some doritos, ground beef, and nacho cheese into her mouth. “She doesn’t want me to touch her”, she admits quietly. Then she rolls her eyes, even though the words still make Monica want to wince and retreat into a cold, dark room. “And she thinks I need a shrink.”   
Carol nods, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. A few blonde locks fall through, though, dangling between her eyebrows like a mountain climber from a cliff. “Is it your powers?”   
She nods. “The sorcerers say our energies are compatible.” She shrugs. “Whatever that means.”   
Carol just smiles, propping her chin up with her palm. “Sounds like it means whatever you want it to.” She kicks her foot against Monica’s underneath the table and beams. “Now, aside from the touching, how’s it going?”   
Monica floats an inch above the seat of her chair. “Good.” She runs a hand up and down her arm, where Wanda had held her, and nods. “It’s going good.”

. . .

Their next mission comes whilst Monica’s asleep.

She tangles herself in her sheets and sprawls out of bed, her panic-induced weightlessness being her only saving grace from the cold, hard wooden floor beneath her. 

“What the hell is that?”, she shouts as Johnny shoots into her bedroom. His flames are sleepy, irritable, like the lowest setting on a burner.

“New Enhanced Protocol”, he mutters, shaking his arms out at his sides before silencing the almost deafening siren blaring from his phone. 

Monica merely tosses hers into the wall, groaning as she summons her supersuit over her bra and shorts. “That’s gonna get old real quick”, she grumbles as they dart out of her window. “And what happened to discretion? Some of us have secret identities.”   
They arrive just as mayhem’s about to break loose. There’s a pack of pterodactyls terrorizing Upper Manhattan, and, given that it’s  _ two in the fucking morning _ , there aren’t that many human emergency response on call. Monica catches sight of Wanda attempting to pry Tony from the jaws of a shrieking pterodactyl and feels warmth blossom within her. 

“Dinosaurs?”, Monica asks as Wanda’s gotten Tony free of his pterodactyl.

Wanda just grins and says, “Welcome to the twenty-first century”.

“I think you got your time periods mixed up.” She jumps out of the way just as a pterodactyl snaps its jaws at her. “So what’s the deal?”

“Strange got caught in a wormhole”, Wanda says, as if that explains anything. 

“So the Time Stone’s having a sick day?”   
Wanda just shrugs, then narrows her eyes as a neanderthal comes barrelling towards them. They both leap into the air, then turn to survey the battered neighborhood. 

“I was wondering”, Wanda begins as they’re firing at a T-rex gnawing at a great oak tree. “Do you wanna go to that Avenger Banquet together?”   
Monica’s hands go hot, burning a hole clear through the dinosaur. She ducks as it swipes its tail at her, launches a fireball from her chest, and narrowly avoids being turned into a chew toy. Once she’s out of its sight, she pants, looks up at Wanda, and says, incredulous, “You wanna go to the Banquet with me?”

Wanda bites her lip, opening a portal to chop the dinosaur in half. She hovers up to meet Monica, taps her fingers against her forearm, and shrugs. “Well, we have to bring a date.”   
Monica wavers. If she’s honest, she was considering skipping the Banquet altogether. For one thing, crowds mean reporters, and reporters mean questions, and, for another, she’s not technically an Avengers, so she wasn’t even sure if the invite extended to her.

But if Wanda’s asking…

“Wanda, Monica”, Sam’s strained voice comes over the intercom. 

“On our way”, Monica says back into her mic. Then she smiles timidly at Wanda and says, “Pick me up an hour before?”   
Wanda swallows, red dripping from the tips of her fingers, and nods. “Okay”, she squeaks out. And then she disappears.

“We’re supposed to be Avenging”, Johnny says later as they’re surveying the damage of the attack. “Not flirting with the Team.”   
“I’m a multitasker”, she defends with a shrug. Then, beaming so bright her form glows yellow, she floats, presses her arms and knees close to her, and says, “I’ve got a date! I think!”   
Johnny beams. “Awesome. I’ll chaperone!”

Monica shows him both her middle fingers, giggles, then flies into the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Lol I'm Done With Titles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dsdjhdhdbdsbdsjbdsjb I'm done with summaries, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So first off, Andromeda is Talos's daughter. Last time I checked, she's unnamed, so I gave her one.  
Second, I've got some shit I've gotta take care of on Monday, so, depending on how things go, this might be the update for next week. I don't plan on it, but just in case, keep that in mind.  
Third, I know the Monica/Wanda's been slow-going so far, but things are gonna kick off in the next few chapters so thank you for sticking around this long if that's what made you click on this 😂😂😂, it really means a lot.

The Banquet isn’t for another three months, but Monica buys her dress that afternoon. She planned to make the drive in her dad’s old pickup, but when she went to leave the apartment, she was instead greeted by the sight of herself standing in the doorway and quickly found her plans for the day changing.

“Miss Spectrum”, the look-alike says with a dramatic bow. “‘tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Monica rolls her eyes. She leans against the doorframe and shakes her head. “‘Meda, if you’re gonna show up unannounced, you could at least keep your voice down. I’m trying to keep the part time superhero thing on the low.”

Andromeda grins cheekily, tips her Ray-Bans at her, and briefly lets her image shift to her Skrull form. Monica matches her grin with one of her own, and Andromeda giggles. “Come here, asshole”, Andromeda says, throwing her arms around her. “How ya been!?”

Monica squeezes her hard, smiling so wide her face hurts, and closes the door before guiding them to the living room. “Same old, same old.” She flicks her form between solid and light, smile growing even wider at the look Andromeda gives her.

“Holy shit!”, she says, mischief bright in her eyes. “Wow. Man, it is an entirely different experience seeing this in person.” Before Monica can give a response to that, ‘Meda makes her way into the kitchen, rumbling through the cabinets until she finds a box of Vanilla Wafers. “Now that you’re all powered up”, she says, pouring several cookies into her hand. “I’m definitely taking you to space. “Saturn’s rings are a little underwhelming, but, man, the storms on Pluto are amazing”- she pauses to munch around her snack, then points at Monica and says, practically thrumming with excitement, “-and there’s this one spot a few galaxies from here, they’ve actually perfected pizza plants!” She hops up onto the counter; then, as if something’s just occurred to her, she waves a hand through the air and tosses the box to Monica. “And oooh.” She wiggles her eyebrows and smirks. “I wanna hear all about this Wanda chick.”

They wind up staying in for the afternoon, catching up on each other’s lives and trading music collections, before Monica tells her she has to go shopping.

Andromeda, being who she is, drives her there in her cruiser. They draw some attention at that, but Monica waves off her concern.

“It’s the ‘10s, babe. People are a lot more accepting of shit now.”

“Mm hm.” Andromeda sits back in her seat and sets the cruiser to autopilot. “Was that before or after the Sons of Asgard pulled an E.T.?” She turns to Monica, rolls her eyes, and says, “Ugh, enough about space. You still haven’t told me about Wanda!”

“I’d’ve told you sooner”, Monica sighs as she kicks her feet up on the console. “But you been radio silent for months.” She drums her fingers against her armrest and bites her lip. “What happened?”

She shrugs, then digs into her box of cookies. “Undercover op. You know how that is.” She shoves a handful of cookies into her mouth, then points an accusing finger at Monica. “And quit trying to change the subject.”   
“Good luck with that”, Johnny perks up from the backseat. “Avoidance is her coping mechanism.”

Monica rolls her eyes, watching as the monster of a clothing store comes into view. Andromeda whistles and says, “Damn. Somebody’s got taste”.

The cruiser jolts to a holt, and Monica crawls out of her seat and descends the ramp as it folds out. “Yes and a hefty Avenger’s check.” She smirks, letting her form slip into gaseous as Johnny and Andromeda spill out behind her. They must make for quite a sight as they navigate the parking lot: a green lady, a man of fire, and a woman of light. 

She’s usually a lot more discreet but what the hell? She’s in a good mood.

“‘Compatible energies’”, Andromeda says, fingering a cashmere sweater on clearance. She turns up her nose and looks to Johnny. “Translation, please.”   
“Soulmates”, he supplies, and Andromeda nods. “I thought so.”   
“Guys, I need something to wear, not a matchmaker.” Monica narrows her eyes at a wool dress, phantom itches blossoming throughout her being at just the thought of wearing it. 

“Speaking of…” Johnny smiles at a little girl watching him with wide eyes, then turns back to Monica. “The Banquet is in the fall. Why we here so early?”

“I don’t wanna get caught up in the back to school crowd”, Monica murmurs, ignoring the way her energy takes on a darker hue. Her eyes fall upon a dress fashioned in the style of a tux, swatches of white and black criss-crossing across the chest. She nods and picks it up, a soft smile spreading across her face. “I could pull this off”, she says under her breath and quickly finds herself affirmed by a couple of smartasses before startling as the ground rumbles beneath her. 

She cranes her head to the window, a scowl settling at the sight of Rhino charging down the street. 

“All work and no play”, Johnny sighs with as Andromeda whips a blaster out from her holster. “Are you licensed to carry that?”

Andromeda just flashes him a grin and spins the blaster between her fingers. “Not in this star system.” Then she stomps her feet, floats off the ground, and darts out the door.

Monica rushes to the front desk, slides her dress to the cashier, and asks, “Keep that on hold for me?” The cashier stares at her, mouth agape as he nods. Monica beams, light seeping between her teeth, and says, “Thanks!” before rushing after ‘Meda and Johnny.

. . .

“Fancy seeing you here.”   
She senses her before she hears her, but Monica doesn’t let her know that. She looks up from the field report she’s writing and smiles, clicking the point of her pen back into its tunnel. “Hey, Wanda.”   
Wanda smiles and settles into the lounge chair beside her. “Hey, Monica.” She tucks her feet underneath her and rests her head against the back of the couch. She looks comfy. “The bodega last week”, she drawls, staring down into her lap. “That was...impressive.”   
Monica’s bodily energy stirs, taking on a yellowish hue. “You saw that, huh?”   
Wanda just smiles. “Everybody saw. You’re kind of hard to miss.” She drums her fingers against her thigh, and silence befalls them. Monica sits there in it, surprised yet pleased that she’s comfortable in it. She forces herself to focus back on her report, but it’s in that moment that Wanda clears her throat. Monica looks back up, finding Wanda still staring into her lap as she murmurs “I’m going to Seattle for a few weeks”.

“...Oh.” Her pencil pauses in its scribbling. If she thinks too hard, it’ll phase right through her fingers, so she holds Wanda’s eyes and simply says, “I hope it goes well.”   
Wanda nods, spinning a piece of string folded into her web between her fingers. Her brows are furrowed, and her lips are pursed. “Sam said something about a buddy-system. He uh.” She tugs her fingers, and the web spirals into a single length of string before she twists it back into a net of interconnected lengths. “He thinks I should ask someone to come with, something to appease the suits about Avenger cross-continent travel and whatever.”

“Oh.”  _ Use your words, Rambeau.  _ Monica swallows and sets her report aside, neverminding the fact that it passes through her hand just before it can meet the surface of the table. “Did you-did you decide on anyone?”   
This time, when Wanda pulls the web loose, she doesn’t move to reassemble it. She turns to look at Monica and says, “Yeah. You, actually”. Then, as if something’s occurred to her, “Unless you’re busy or-”   
“No, I literally don’t have anything going on right now”, Monica says, wincing because that, yeah, that sounded a little desperate. She leans back into her seat, hoping Wanda doesn’t notice the way her back phases through it, and nods. “I mean, I might, but I could move some stuff around.”

“Good.” 

“Good.”

Wanda smiles, all dopey and toothy, then turns back to her string. She clears her throat, and bites her lip. “So...the bodega…”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I wrote a sequel to this, would anyone be interested? Because I'm hearing the WandaVision show is gonna be partially-sitcom based and a girl's having all sorts of ideas...

Packing’s easy enough.

After she joined the Air Force, she got used to living with only what she could carry. Then the accident happened, and holding so much as a tube of toothpaste began to prove troublesome.

So she sort of grew apart from earthly possessions. Not by want or need but merely by happenstance. It became her life, and in those early months, when she would disappear into the night, lost to the atmosphere, life was tough.

Anyway.

Monica doesn’t have much of anything. So when Wanda shows up on her doorstep that Sunday morning, several heavy suitcases orbiting her like she’s her own star, all Monica has in a small drawstring bookbag clenched within a sweaty hand. Wanda raises an eyebrow, and Monica squirms, fighting back the urge to seep through the floor.

“I travel light”, she says, and Wanda nods, hesitant. Monica shuffles her feet. She tightens her hold around a drawstring, forces herself to meet Wanda’s eye, and softly says, “I’m really happy we’re doing this”.

The tendrils of red surrounding Wanda, once taut and drawn close to her, loosen. They inch closer to Monica, and Wanda smiles. Wanda brushes a lock of hair behind her ear and fumbles with the “Me, too.”   
“Me, three!”, Johnny calls out from where he’s engaged in a heated battle of Monopoly with Andromeda. 

Monica rolls her eyes, throwing a stuffed dalmatian at him before closing the door behind them. 

They fly upstate and take a Quinjet; they almost get caught by Bruce and Brunnhilde, but they’re too busy playing Just Dance to really notice them.

At her insistence, Monica takes the job of flying. She settles into the pilot’s seat with a silent sigh, her fingers quickly finding their way around the yoke. She squeezes handles, getting a feel around the metal beneath the pads of her fingers, and inhales softly. She hasn’t been behind the wheel of, well, anything in years. She’d been afraid, of losing control, of losing her touch. But now she’s here, and it’s like no time’s passed at all. Monica pulls the yoke back, and the nose of the Quinjet rises.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Wanda watching her. “Are you okay?”

Monica’s ears pop. She breathes in deep, licks her lips, and looks down at her hands on the yoke. They’re still solid. “Yeah”, she says, not taking her eyes away from where the sky lies before them. 

They pull over Seattle in a matter of hours. It’s summer, so when they descend the ramp, it’s to balmy air and cloudy skies. Wanda pulls an umbrella out of one of her bags and sets it off over them just as a heavy downpour starts from above.

It’s not a vacation, that much Monica gathers. Wanda’s here on business, joining a few other Enhanced in putting together a stronger bill for Enhanced Individuals’ Rights. But even those meetings only last for a few hours, with the rest leftover for them to just be together. 

When Monica realizes this, she saps all of the power out of her phone and into herself. Then she realizes that Wanda, ever the pragmatist, had probably known this when she planned the trip out. She tries not to look into it too much.

“I’ve never been to Seattle”, Monica says one night in their hotel room, twisting her hair back into several thick braids. Wanda looks up from where she’s looking through one of her suitcases and raises her eyebrows. “Louisiana and New York”, Monica says with a shrug. “That’s about all I know.” 

Wanda’s quiet for a moment. Then, somewhat apprehensively, she says, “I only really knew my village back in Transia. Then I came to the States and...well…” She turns her attention back to her suitcase. “I’ve kinda been all over”.

Monica lowers her arms from her hair, sighing contentedly at the strain that’s settled in her muscles, and looks at Wanda in the mirror. “Have you ever gone back home?”   
Wanda’s lips turn thin, and her chest heaves. “No.” She goes quiet again, then adds, “But maybe one day”.

Monica nods at that. She sets aside her bottle of olive oil, wipes the excess oil up and down her arms, and crashes onto the bed. “You really think those meetings do any good?”   
“I wouldn’t be attending them if I didn’t”, Wanda replies, rolling her eyes. Then, her voice softer, “I think it lets the assholes know we’re not just gonna take their shit”.

Monica hums. She’s never took part in the “Enhanced and Proud” shit, but she can admit she sees the appeal in it. After three years of Spectrum, Monica doesn’t think she’s really herself anymore. She doesn’t know who or what she is; she just knows that most days, she doesn’t like it, that she aches for the woman she used to be. Back when bad days were just bad days and not the defining point of her life.

So no. Monica’s never really bought into the selflove and pride rhetoric of it all. But she wishes she could. Maybe then, she wouldn’t feel quite as bad. She props her head up on the meat of her arm and looks over at Wanda. “You ever wish you were normal?”

When Wanda next speaks, it’s with an air of casualty and confidence Monica wishes she possessed. “Normal wishes it were me.”

. . .

The first thing Monica learns about Wanda as a roommate is that she’s a heavy sleeper.

Monica’s finished showering and brushing her teeth and is about to move onto lotioning when she realizes that that’s Wanda’s alarm going off and not her own. 

The second thing she learns about Wanda as a roommate? She doesn’t like being woken up.

Wanda groans and sits up; her eyes are glowing, a sleepy, grumpy red, and her hair is messy, strewn and tangled about her head. This is the same woman that intimidates the shit out of just about everyone, but she just looks so  _ cute _ .

“What?”, Wanda says through a yan, rubbing her knuckles into her eyes.

“You look like Grumpy Bear”, Monica says, giggling when Wanda tosses a pillow her way. 

They lounge around for a half hour, watching old Batman cartoons and playing Mario Kart on their phones before deciding to head out.

“I wanna get some souvenirs”, Monica says, practically skipping as they get into an Uber. Wanda just yawns, ducking in after her, and nods along. “Not t-shirts or anything lame, though”, Monica continues as she settles into her seat. The Uber pulls off, and Wanda watches Monica, her eyebrows raised. Monica grins and says, “I want key-chains.”   
“As if key-chains aren’t equally as lame”, Wanda says with a snort.

“I’m telling you, they’ll change your life.” Fishing her phone out of her bra, Monica then pulls up Google Maps; she stares at the screen for a moment, her eyes beginning to strain as a number of restaurants and banks and tourist traps skitter before her. She hums, rubbing her temples, and closes the app. “Okay, so you need to be back at the Square by noonish, right? Right. So.” She pauses, swallowing the saliva gathering in her mouth, and pushes on. “I was thinking we could just waste some time being cringey tourists ‘til then...How’s that sound?” Wanda gives her a thumbs-up, and Monica tells the driver to take them somewhere nice. 

Apparently, that wasn’t very specific, though, because they wind up standing outside a Dunkin’ Donuts. 

“Why does a breakfast sandwich cost four dollars?”, Monica grumbles, pulling said sandwich free of its wrapper.

“Capitalism”, Wanda offers in response. She sets aside her despicably-small cup of ice cream, then looks up and drops her elbows onto the table. “Not that the local doughnut shop isn’t amazing enough, but how about we go somewhere actually interesting?”   
Monica says “yes” to that. And so Wanda, being the extra bitch that she is, suggests they finish their lunch atop the Space Needle. And Monica, being the competitive bitch that she is, does nothing at all to dissuade her. 

Wanda sets their umbrella down between them, creates some energy fields at their sides to protect them from the winds and rains, and spreads their lunch out on a blanket before them.

_ It’s not a date _ , Monica tells herself. She and Wanda are just friends. Good friends. And sometimes good friends take vacations together. She’s just a little nervous because, because she’s away from New York, away from Louisiana, that’s all. Homesick, that’s what it is.

“I came here once”, Wanda says as Monica’s in the midst of reaching for her second sandwich. Wanda’s eyes crinkle, and she smiles, spooning a bit of ice cream into her mouth. “Sam and me, we were waiting to catch back up with the others.”   
Monica takes a moment and pictures it; a woman of red swirls and spirals and a man with thick, brown feathers zipping around the Needle. She snorts, lifting a hand to cover her mouth. Wanda smirks, ducks her head, and reaches for her egg and cheese sandwich. 

“My gramma used to have this keychain of the skyline”, Monica says, shaking her head at the thought of how it felt in her tiny fingers. “I don’t remember what happened to it.”

Wanda hums at that. And for a moment, Monica thinks of saying something else, of keeping the conversation going. Then she thinks how content and how centered their energies feel together, and she lets the silence continue on.

Lightning cracks above them, strong and jolting and powerful, and they don’t move an inch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback's always welcome! Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, we're like a little over halfway through! I'm actually really excited about how this is turning out so thank y'all for still reading, it means a lot 😊😊😊.

Wanda’s meetings always leave her feeling a bit charged up. It’s a different kind of energy that can’t be fought off in the midst of battle or a spontaneous race, so Monica usually suggests something to help settle her nerves.

Tonight, that happens to be in the form of listening to music.

Monica’s plugged her phone into the mini-speaker sitting between them and turned on the playlist they’d consolidated. It’s a mixture of music released just a few weeks ago, to some a few decades prior; artists that Monica knows by the sound of their voice to artists she doesn’t recognize; and songs in English, Romani, Korean, and Spanish. As Monica sits there, basking in the familiar and unfamiliar, she feels Wanda’s energy become centered and less heated. And in the moments following this discovery, she realizes the same could be said of her own.

They’re lying on their backs on the floor, head to head, staring up at the ceiling. The light dimmer’s set to low, casting the room in a soft, dark orange, with shadows skittering about the walls and floors. Monica’s drumming her fingers against her stomach, humming along to the clarinets and cellos pulsing against her, when Wanda suddenly says, “Thank you”.

Monica blinks, turning onto her side and scooting up so that their faces are to each other. “For what?”

“Nothing. Just.” She hesitates, then looking into Monica’s eyes, she says, “For being here.” Then she turns her gaze back to the ceiling and quietly adds, “For listening, I guess”.

Monica’s body begins to float. Wanda looks at her, then envelopes her own body in red swirls, pushing herself off the ground and into the air

“There aren’t a lot of people who understand, you know?” She lets her eyes flutter shut. “What it means to have power, to  _ be _ power. It can make the world seem real small, and I…” She bites her lip and lowers her voice. “I’m just happy that I have you. To share that with, I mean.”

Silence extends between them, the one she’s learned to accept, to enjoy.

“I used to hate my powers”, Monica admits before she can stop herself. She feels tendrils of energy slip off of her and reach out to Wanda. Wanda just watches them, idly, like you would a cat. Monica lets them linger, and Wanda doesn’t tell her to call them back.

“And now?”, Wanda asks as the playlist shifts to a rock track.

Monica thinks for a moment. And then she says, “No” and surprises herself. Because she doesn’t hate them anymore. Arguably, her powers are as much herself as her body had once been. She presses a hand to her abdomen, feeling the call of energy and life residing there. She breathes, paying mind to the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders. “No. They just...scare me sometimes.” The initial hatred and resentment, that’s mostly gone, but the fear still remains. And she doubts it will ever fade. 

“You think you’ll disappear”, Wanda says, blinking softly. Tentatively, a pulse of energy exudes from her and tangles with Monica’s. “You think you’ll get lost and that you’ll never find your way back.”

Monica just nods, the carpet soft and smooth against her cheek before her skin dissolves into pure energy. “It’s so easy to phase through shit, even when I don’t want to.” She inhales, content at the feel of her power mingling with Wanda’s. “I know it’s dumb but-”   
“It’s not dumb.” Wanda reaches out a hand, then, seeming to decide against it, allows it to linger an inch before where Monica’s floats. “It’s not.”

She holds her gaze for a minute. Then she lowers it to the ground beneath them and closes her eyes. “Wanda?”   
“Yeah?”   
The energy at her center lurches. “Thanks.”

. . .

Two weeks into their visit, Monica awakes from the middle of a dream she can’t yet remember. She sits up with a start, breathing heavily in the almost-quiet of the room.

Almost.

She turns to her left and finds Wanda in a similar position, tidal waves of crimson waters spilling from every inch of her being. Monica breathes; she winces at the grating feel of the air upon her skin and notes the way the silence echoes like discordant shrieking in her ears. 

They stare at one another, eyes glowing bright and wonderful before Wanda moves, slowly, tentatively. Monica gulps and scoots over, pulling up her bedsheets so that Wanda can crawl underneath them. “Are you okay?”

Wanda nods and presses closer to her. She blinks softly, and her energy spills tightly around Monica, taut and trembling, like her father’s arms that one time she got lost at Mardi Gras. “Are you?”, Wanda counters, and it’s only then that Monica releases that the feeling of broken glass against her flesh, that the unrelenting screeching is coming from her. From Wanda, as well, just as intensely, as a matter of fact. But it’s in reaction to Monica. And beneath that fear, there’s concern; there’s hurt.

“I’m okay”, Monica says when she realizes she’s yet to respond. She bites her lips as Wanda’s arms wrap around her, watching her confusedly. Monica’s afraid of moving, of freaking her out, of ruining everything, but she isn’t quite sure what this is or what the next right move could be. It’s a scary thought. Since she was a kid, she’s always taken great care to always be aware of the next step. She’s always had her reflexes. But more and more, she finds herself lost, stuck pondering between moves.

_ Trachea, mainstem bronchus, lobar bronchus, segmental bronchus, bronchiole… _

Monica closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. “You don’t...you don’t have to do this.” She scratches at her bonnet, content to find that her hand doesn’t pass right through it or melt it clear to its elastic band. “This happens all the time. I-I just need a minute.”   
“...Do you want me to leave?”

“No”, Monica instantly says. Then, hesitantly, “Do you want to leave?”

“No.” Wanda pulls her closer, then grabs hold of the sheets and pulls them up over them both. They don’t do much against the frigid A/C, but the sentiment behind the act warms her all the same. “You called out to me”, Wanda whispers as she rests her head against Monica’s chest. “In your sleep. I...I thought you were in trouble.”   
“I’m okay”, Monica repeats, and Wanda shakes her head. 

“No. No, you’re not.” She presses her palm against Monica’s stomach and breathes. “Your energy. It’s weeping.”   
“It does that sometime.” 

Quiet descends upon the room once more. When enough time’s passed for her to assume Wanda’s fallen asleep, Monica whispers, “I hear you sometime, too”. Because she does. She doesn’t mean to, anymore than she thinks Wanda does. It’s just...something that happens; she’ll be out cold, warm and cozy beneath her blankets and suddenly be overwhelmed by the feeling of ice-water being poured over her and jolting her into consciousness.

It’s never a good dream, and it’s never about the present. And Monica never asks or looks it up, but she knows it’s about her family and her home, knows it as if it were her own life. But in those moments, when they’re so interlinked that the very thought of separation is painful, she supposes it might as well be.

“I hear you, too”, Monica says once more. She closes her eyes then, springing back into wakefulness when Wanda quietly murmurs, “I know”.

. . .

It’s the morning after, and Monica awakes to a bed half-cold. She allows a moment to filter in before scolding herself. She knows Wanda’s reservations about touch. Grateful as she is to have been able to fall asleep so closely to her, Monica won’t push her luck. She’ll take what she can get, and if this is what she can get, then she’s perfectly fine with that.

“Monica.”

Monica freezes. She blinks, then looks to her left and finds Wanda standing in the doorway that leads to the TV room. She’s got a tray of food in her hands, and, unless Monica’s missed something, those are the same pajamas she went to sleep in last night. 

“I ordered room service”, Wanda says; she lets the tray drift into the air and over to Monica’s bed, where it settles upon her sheets with a soft sigh. Wanda pushes a strand of hair behind her ear and clears her throat. “I know you said you don’t eat much but...I dunno, I figured maybe today...” She looks at Monica then, frowning at the look she’s giving her. “What?”

“Nothing”, Monica’s quick to say. She looks down at the tray of foot and finds her mouth watering at the sight of the steaming cinnamon buns piled up beside the bowl of oatmeal. She really doesn’t eat much, and she doesn’t really get full anymore. But her taste buds still work pretty good, and she can appreciate the food tray for what it really is. Monica takes two hot cinnamon buns into her hands and takes a bite out of one before looking up at Wanda and smiling. “You want some?”   
Something flickers in Wanda’s eyes. Something like hope, like delight, like tenderness. Whatever it is, it’s gone within the second that it appears. Carefully, she sits down on the bed beside Monica and reaches for a cinnamon bun and a single, fluffy pancake. She dips the pancake in a container of syrup. When she bites into it, Monica thinks she sees the faintest hint of a smile grazing her lips, but that could just be a trick of the light reflecting off the syrup.

Either way. They have a good breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback's always appreciated! See y'all next week!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never seen or read anything about Warren, so I'm basing his character off what little I skimmed from his Wikipedia article :3  
Alsooooooo, I let out for Winter Break this week, so starting next week, chapters'll be released on a bi-weekly schedule. I've got about 14+ pages left in my drafts, so this'll probably be wrapping up sometime between late December and early/mid January.  
ALSO. I was kinda depressed while I wrote this, so I'm sorry if this chapter flows a little weird.

Wanda never invites Monica to her Enhanced Individuals Rights meetings.

It’s just as well because Monica doesn’t want to go anyway. She can appreciate the goals of the group, but she’s not exactly on good standing with some of its members. That and if the press ever caught wind of her attendance, she doubts she’d ever hear the end of it.

So she doesn’t go. To the meetings, anyway. She’s always there afterwards, lounging outside the Community Center, waiting for Wanda to descend the crumbling steps and meet her where she’s sitting on a rusty bench.

It becomes something of a pattern. She doesn’t realize it, not until she’s about to leave in pursuit of something to eat and a voice in the back of her head responds,  _ But you have to pick up Wanda _ .

Which is just ridiculous because Wanda’s a grownass woman, she doesn’t need anyone to “pick her up”. Regardless, Monica makes the walk over to the Center, thinking of the least awkward way to bring up the topic of their arrangement.

Then she rounds the corner and sees Wanda arguing with some asshat in a button-up and all but disregards the thought.

It takes a while to identify the man, with him out of uniform and all. Then she takes a closer look, and, if she hadn’t already been off-put, she most definitely is now.

“And  _ I’m _ just saying, we’re never gonna make any progress with the pace Charles is talking about”, he’s saying, glowering at Wanda. “We need to propose the bill now.”   
“If we propose it now, they’re just gonna toss it out”, Wanda retorts, sounding both exasperated and frustrated. “We need to gain the support of the public, otherwise, we don’t stand a chance.”

He opens his mouth to answer, faltering when he sees Monica’s risen and begun walking towards them. His brows furrow, and he frowns. It’s only once Monica’s paused beside Wanda that recognition unfurls within his eyes.

“Well, well, well”, he says with a sardonic chuckle. “Miss Monica Rambeau.”

Monica just purses her lips. “Warren.” More commonly known as “Angel”, he’s the poster child of the Enhanced Rights Movement. Charming, good with kids, and possessing a great amount of control of his powers; he’s everything the movement’s been looking for.

Warren Worthington,  _ the third _ .

“I didn’t know you were in the city”, Warren says, allowing his wings to bloom and droop over his shoulders. His eyes flick to Wanda, then back to Monica. “What’s the occasion?”

“...Just here to support a friend.”

“Ah.” Warren nods, then stepping closer to Monica, beams wide and drawls, “Soooo, what’s the word with the Avengers?”

“Warren”, Wanda says sharply.

“Just a curious question.” His wings, massive and fluffy, give a brief flap before lifting him into the air. He hovers just a foot above the ground, but it’s a foot above Monica nonetheless. His grin stretches wide as he crosses his arms over his chest and muses, “It’s not like Teams to take this long deciding, though”.

“I told them I didn’t want to join”, Monica retorts cooly. “My decision, Worthington.” She looks to Wanda, and Wanda reaches out, taking hold of her hand and walking away without so much as a backwards glance. 

“Such a dick”, Monica says once they’ve been walking a minute.

Wanda snorts and shakes her head. “You should try working with him.” She sidesteps around a pothole, then, turning her attention to the barren street before them. “Have you? Worked with him before.”

Monica nods. “A year after I got my powers”, she admits. “Nick thought it’d be good to partner me with someone in good standing with the public.”

Wands frowns. “I don’t remember hearing about that.”   
“Well, Mr. Warren Worthington III made sure of that”, Monica says, rolling her eyes. “We never made it past Training Sessions, and, since my Enhanced-status was still confidential, it was easy to keep it all under wraps.” She pauses in her walking, staring as the words DEAD END look back at her. She tucks her free hand into the pocket of her sweatshirt and squeezes Wanda’s hand with her other.   
“After our session, he said he couldn’t risk his reputation with someone who couldn’t control their powers.” She hadn’t cared. That’d been one of her numb days, when even the worst of the worst couldn’t get her down. Warren seemed to take that as some sort of challenge, her ignoring his insults. He should have stuck around, cause the day after, she was snappish and irritable and, as a whole, in the perfect mood for arguing.

Warren hadn’t, though, and so when he left, it was with the idea that there was some sort of competition between them. And ever since then, he’s been a pain to deal with.

“He doesn’t know what he missed out on”, Wanda says lowly.

Monica squeezes her hand tight. She lets a flake of radiant energy peel away from her core and pulse. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a thin red string approach, slowly wrapping around her own strand of energy like a helix of DNA.

She takes a deep breath. Then she turns around and, with Wanda at her side, starts back up the street.

. . .

Wanda tells Monica about Pietro on a rainy day, while they’re cushioned within the pillowfort they’d assembled out of boredom on their first day at the hotel.

Wanda’s arms are wrapped around her, and as she tells Monica about the exact moment she felt Pietro’s energy cease to exist, her hold around Monica grows fainter and fainter until she’s just barely holding on.

Between them, Wanda’s summoned a medium-sized sphere of red energy; it pulses between them, its life force weak and subdued. Monica stares at it, listening to each word spilling from Wanda’s lips like they’re stones across an ocean and she’s trying not to drown.

“He was my brother”, Wanda says, and the sphere freezes, bleeding chaos preserved with merely the twitch of a finger. “But he was my best friend, too. For a long time, my only friend.”

Monica closes her eyes. She never had any siblings, but, growing up, she had Andromeda. And everytime she and her dad left, she always felt like ‘Meda had taken a bit of her along for the ride, like a sovereign to remind her of Monica when she missed her. Monica can’t imagine feeling that incomplete, that empty, for the rest of her life.

“He’d be proud”, she says, and it’s not just talk. She opens her eyes and looks at Wanda, whose end of their bond is trembling with the force it takes to keep her emotions in check. Monica pulls Wanda close, tucking her face in the crook of her neck and breathing in softly. “Who you are, what you’ve done. He’d be proud.”   
There’s a jerk in their bond, violent and abrupt, and Monica moves to pull away, thinking she’s said or done something wrong. But Wanda just wraps her arms tighter around her, her breathing suddenly shaky, and sniffles. Monica keeps her arms where they are and whispers to Wanda; after a while, it just becomes nonsense, even to herself. But Wanda seems to draw comfort from it, so she just keeps on as she is.

. . .

She has her first kiss in six years with Wanda on a deserted train platform after one of Wanda’s meetings.

She doesn’t know who moves first. But she does know that afterwards, neither of them want to pull away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So, as promised, the remaining chapters will be posted twice a week, with the later update going up on Fridays/Saturdays so be sure to check back in towards the end of the week.

They’ve been in Seattle for five weeks when disaster strikes in the form of a woman who’s designated herself as the Hypnotist. 

Monica keeps her eyes closed and her ears plugged during the fight, a feat not nearly as difficult as she thought it’d be. Though she doesn’t rely on them often, she does pick up on vibrational frequencies, which allows her to sense the changing pulses of light and energy in her surroundings. When she said this, Wanda just looked at her and smirked, her own energy buoyant and light as she took in Monica’s words.

The battle’s quick. Between the both of them, Monica guides Wanda, and Wanda uses her telepathy to send a tendril of doubt to the Hypnotist to catch her off guard. Honestly, it’s laughable how easy it all is.

But the teamwork between she and Wanda?

They’ve never really worked together before. Not in that way. Not with their powers meshed so thoroughly together, it’s difficult to discern where one ends and the other begins. Not when Monica can  _ feel _ Wanda so intensely and feel curious, hesitant fingers feeling her as well.

By the time the dust settles, Monica’s panting heavy, and it’s nothing to do with the battle.

“That was...good”, Wanda says, sparing her a glance. She gives Monica a shy smile and scratches the back of her head. “You were good.”

Monica can’t help but beam. “Thanks. You-you were good, too. Great, even.” The officers before them look between them both. The one closest to Monica pokes her shoulder, pulling a face when her flashlight just passes right through her. Monica turns to face her, smile still in place as Wanda turns to attend to her officer. “Yes?”   
The woman clears her throat; she tucks her flashlight back into her belt and sighs. “The mayor’s gonna want a statement.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “And an explanation for why two New York-based heroes are in Seattle.”

Monica bites down a remark at that last bit. It’s not the woman’s fault people are still asses to the Enhanced. She looks about as tired as Monica feels just asking the question. “We’re...here on business”, she eventually says, casting a look in Wanda’s direction. “Technical business.”   
The woman looks up from where she was making a note on her phone and raises her eyebrows. “‘Technical’?”   
“Don’t quote me on that”, Monica murmurs, barely flinching when she suddenly hears Wanda’s voice in her head:  _ I think it’s time we disappear _ .

_ You’re still a hypocrite _ , she thinks back but nods all the same, turning invisible and disappearing after she’s given the woman her report.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the politics”, Monica says later, as they’re navigating their way through Louisa Boren Park. She kicks an acorn a few paces down and rolls her eyes. “I mean, just because we’re superhumans, it’s suddenly weird if we appear outside our hometowns?”   
Wanda looks at her then, a strange look in her eye. She snorts and shakes her head at Monica. “What, you’re thinking of Avenging full-time?”

“I didn’t say that”, Monica replies with a shrug. “I just...I don’t know. Even if I had the energy-shut up-to commit to it, there’s all this bullshit to consider.” She’s been putting it off for years. And the more involved she gets, the more she wants to stay away from it all.

“Enhanced have been around for years”, Wanda says then. “They have to get used to us at some point.”   
Whatever reply Monica had to that is lost at the sudden strong gust of wind that blows from behind them. If Wanda were any less graceful and Monica anymore solid, it would have blown them both over.

“Spectrum. Scarlet. What a surprise.”

Monica narrows her eyes as the figure in the sky comes into view, splitting the ground beneath them into a crater at the impact of their landing. The woman grins, peels her ill-fitting helmet up her head, and gives them a wink.

“Jane?”, Wanda says, confusion clear in her voice and happiness abundant in her eyes. She rushes forward and throws her arms around her neck. When she pulls back, she’s shaking her head and watching her as if she can’t believe she’s here. “What the hell are you doing in Seattle?”

“I could say the same for you”, Jane says with a laugh. “Technically, my friend, Jane Foster, is here for a science conference, and I just happened to have been tagging along with her.” She turns to Monica then, smiling warmly at her. “It’s good to see you again, Nicki.”

Monica merely smirks and cocks her head. “What’s with the uh…” She gestures to her medieval outfit.

“Battle of New York Reenactment at the university”, Jane says, removing her helmet from her head. She balances it against her hip as she digs into her pocket and pulls out two pictures of them both. “Oh and the Revengers want autographs.”

They wind up spending the day in the park. Monica and Jane order supreme chilli dogs, and Wanda orders a tray of cheese fries, watching the two with overt vitriol as they spill chilli and cheese all over themselves. She’s gone to ask the vendor for napkins when Jane turns to Monica, lightning crackling in her eyes as she watches her.

“Do you realize the effect the two of you have on earth’s electromagnetic field?”

Monica just licks at a strand of chilli sliding down her finger. “You’re one to talk”, she points out as a shock runs through their table. If Monica weren’t a living being of energy, she’d be fried right now. 

“This is different”, Jane says as she reaches into her satchel and pulls out a device that looks like something out of a Terminator movie. “It-your bond-is fluid. There’s no patterns, no order to look for. It’s-it’s evolving with every second, I wouldn’t even know what it was or where it came from if I didn’t know you guys, and-”   
“Jane”, Monica says with a pointed look. “I’m fully aware that our bond is freaky and is having unprecedented effects on just about everything, Stephen calls me every Tuesday to freak out over it.”

“Stephen’s a biologist”, Jane points out, without so much as looking up from her device. “I’m an astrophysicist.”   
“I should arrange a playdate for you two”, Monica says, rolling her eyes. “He’s been asking.”   
“Really?”, Jane says, her eyes sparkling, quite literally. “Well, I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”   
“He and Wong are flying in for some concert next week”, Monica says offhandedly. “I’ll see if I can pull something together.” She bites into her chilli dog, considering it. Two of the worlds greatest geniuses in a single room together. She should sell tickets.

She doesn’t have much longer to think on it, though, because it’s then that Wanda returns, napkins and a steaming pretzel in hand. She takes a bite of it, then looks between them both. “What are we talking about?”

Monica and Jane exchange a glance, then both say, “Nothing”.   
. . .

“I’m just saying, it’d’ve been nice to have gotten a phone call.”

Monica flops down stomach-first on the bed, rolling her eyes as she props her phone up against her pillow. “Momma, I go on out-of-state missions all the time”, she says, kicking her feet backward and forward behind her. “It’s not that big a deal.”

Maria rolls her eyes. In the background, Monica can see the living room T.V. playing some cooking show. She watches for a moment, attempting to place a title, before Maria regains her attention. “But this isn’t a mission”, Maria points out, an eyebrow raised. 

“Wanda had some business she needed to take care of, and she wanted somebody to go with her.” Monica shrugs her shoulders, then rolls onto her back; she licks her lips, then adds, “Friends go on vacations together all the time”.

“Is that what Wanda is? A friend?” When Monica remains silent, Maria sighs and leans closer to the screen. “I’m happy to see you’re better, baby, I am. I just...I want you to be careful.” Monica closes her eyes. She misses her. They’re states away from each other, and, now more than ever, Monica feels it. She feels it in the way she aches for her arms wrapped around her, in the proximity of her voice that Facetime could never replicate. 

But beneath that, there’s frustration, too. Because there’s no need for her to worry. She’s not a preteen, with emotions and passions too big the body they dwelled within. This isn’t too much for her. “Momma”, she says, voice low and thick with emotion.

“When you love”, Maria cuts in, the words coming out sterner than need be. “You do it with your whole being.”

Monica opens her eyes. She stares at the ceiling, feeling her muscles draw tight and her brows furrow. “Yeah and?” 

“And I want you to be sure. Okay?” There’s a pause before she presses onward, tone hesitant. “I know she makes you happy, but you don’t know her. Take it slow. That’s all I’m asking.” 

Monica rolls back onto her stomach. She stares for a moment, watching her mother, noting the wrinkles now adorning her face and how she always looks so tired these days. Guilt, prickly and pointy, twinges in her stomach because Monica knows that she’s the cause. 

Admittedly, Maria’s worry is not without concern. Even before the explosion on the rig, Monica’s always felt things strongly; for others, for herself, for the world. When Carol was taken, she struggled with not only her own grief but Maria’s as well. When she first held hands with a girl, she was light with her elation and her girlfriend’s. And when she learned what it meant to be a woman in the air force, she was weighted with her anger and the so-called injustice of her bigoted colleagues. And it’d been a struggle each time to take on someone else’s emotions. But it was also hard because her own were so severe, it felt like choking underneath her own tidal wave.

Empathy. Some sort of twisted, wicked sense of empathy. People usually mean it in a good sense. And in most cases, Monica supposes it usually is.

So she doesn’t blame her mom for worrying. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s right. Because Monica  _ does  _ know Wanda. Some days, it feels like she knows her better than she knows herself.

_ I’m sure _ is what she wants to say. But she knows that’s not what her mother wants to hear, so she instead says, “I’ll be careful”. She doesn’t know what exactly that would entail because Wanda could never hurt her. But she says it anyway, says it like a promise because this is her mom and she knows she means well.

She’ll be careful, even if she knows she has absolutely no reason to. 

. . .

As their visit nears its end, Monica realizes, with a bit of a start, that she’s actually excited to be going back home.

That’s not necessarily to say that she hadn’t enjoyed her time with Wanda, because she had, immensely. It’s just that...home is home. And these past few months, she’s grown quite fond of her squat apartment back in New York.

And maybe, just maybe, there’s a part of her that’d like to share some of New York with Wanda.

“Y’all could stay a little longer”, Nick’s saying from the speaker on Monica’s phone. “For once, the world isn’t shitting itself, so you’re not exactly missing out on anything.”   
Monica rolls her eyes, stuffing a pair of joggers and a tube top into her drawstring. “It’s not that”, she says, allowing herself a glance at where steam slips from underneath the door leading to the bathroom. “I just think we’ve been away long enough, is all.”

“Mm hm.”   
“Don’t ‘mm hm’ me”, she chides, scooping the phone off the desk and smiling fondly. “How’s retirement?”

“Retirement is great”, Nick says matter-of-factly. “And if you see that smartass Talos, you tell him I wear ‘seniorship’ just fine.”   
She rolls her eyes at that. “I’ll be sure to do that.” She sprawls out on her bed, her locks cushioning her bare back against the sheets. “You’re still swinging by for the banquet, right?”

“Like I’m really gonna miss Little Nicki’s induction into the Avengers.”   
Heat stirs in her stomach. She throws an arm over her eyes and groans. “You know that’s not what this is.”

“And you know you’re a lot more excited about this than you’re letting on.”   
“Mm hm.”   
“Don’t ‘mm hm’ me.” There’s a ding in the background, one which sounds suspiciously similar to a toaster, followed by a cat’s meow. “I gotta go. I’ll holler at you later.”   
“I’ll call you later. Bye, Uncle Nick.” With that, she hangs up, rolling onto her side and staring out the window before her.

Seattle is a nice city, she’ll give it that. But it’ll never come anywhere close to New York, just like New York could never compete with New Orleans. She hums contentedly, thinking of all the new memories she’s gained from this trip just as the shower’s water turns off. When the bathroom door opens, it spills out a thicker cloud of steam, in the midst of which stands Wanda in a towel. She pauses in the doorway, eyes on the ceiling and lips in a thin line, and it’s then that Monica realises she was supposed to be getting dressed.

It’s amazing that they went nearly two months living together and never once saw each other in their underwear. 

“Do you want me to get dressed?”, Monica asks, unable to keep the awkwardness out of her voice.

Wanda shrugs, eyes still on the ceiling as she starts towards the other suite. “I mean, if you’re comfortable-”   
“-I just don’t want you to feel weird-”   
“-or like you can’t be...open with me…” When Wanda returns, she’s wearing a dress the color of leaves in autumn, and her hair is free of a towel, lying damp and flat against her shoulders. She bites her lip and works at drying her hair before preparing to put it up in a bun. “I don’t mind.”   
“Okay”, Monica breathes. She lets her legs part and her body convert over to energy with a gleam that casts the room in shadows of soft, feathery yellows. “Our plane doesn’t leave for another few hours.”   
“Right.” Wanda hesitates where she stands before crossing the room in a few short steps and sitting down beside her on the bed. 

“I like your dress”, Monica says around a dry tongue. “Is-is that a new one?” She doesn’t recognize it from the outfits she’s seen her wear since they’ve arrived. It’s teal, with flecks of dark green dancing about the fabric.   
Wanda nods, her hands fidgeting in her lap as she stares at the wall. “Yeah. There was this shop and...and I bought it.” Silence stretches between them, nowhere near as comfortable as the one Monica’s used to. Just when she’s about it break it with something dreadful like the weather or her nail polish, Wanda quietly asks, “Is it gonna be different? When we get back?”

Monica lingers on the thought. It’s been on her mind, since last week, when Wanda first tentatively suggested that they think about heading home. Things are different between them, and it’s not just the hesitant kisses they now share. 

It’s like their bond’s morphed, shaped itself into something entirely different. She doesn’t know if it’s because they’re away from prying eyes and know-it-all roommates, but who they are to each other isn’t the same as who they were before.

The thought of going home and all that ceasing to exist scares her. But what scares Monica more is going home and going back to the way they used to be. She  _ wants  _ things to be different, it’s what she’s been wishing for since their energies first conjoined paths in the endless stream of matter coursing throughout the universe.

“I was kinda hoping so”, Monica says lowly. At first, she thinks Wanda hasn’t heard it. But then she feels a hand enveloping her own, and she knows.

She knows she heard.

. . .

New York is pretty much the same as she left it, excluding Scott’s kid growing a pair of wings. And Monica’s inclined to say she’s the same as she left.

But then she looks at herself in the mirror, realizes that it’s grown to be an easy feat for her, and she thinks otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know if you like it!  
And heads up if y'all've been enjoying all the Monica/Wanda fluff, you're gonna hate me in a couple of chapters 😓😓😓


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I legit cannot write a story without angst in it. My brain rejects the very idea of it :3  
Anyway, here's today's chapter! I'll see y'all again Monday!

The first week back is difficult.

They see each other often, and things have changed, in all the ways Monica could have hoped for and more. Their bond is stronger.  _ “Healthier” _ , Stephen had said when Monica told him about it.  _ “Not quite as malnourished as it was last time.” _

_ (“And why you didn’t think to tell us this before?”) _

_ (“Because you two had obviously developed a nutrition plan for it. Duh.”) _

That being said, she and Wanda aren’t in close proximity with each other. And though Monica had grown to love being so close to her, she hadn’t realized the effect it’d have on her. Or Wanda, for that matter.

For a while, she thinks it’s just her. For the whole that she’s known Wanda, she’s always been well-composed, completely, almost enviously, sane. So when Monica feels their bond growing strained and withered, she automatically assumes it’s her own struggles.

Then she awakes in the middle of the night nine days after their return to New York and realizes it’s not.

Or maybe...maybe “awakes” isn’t the best word for it. Because from the moment she opens her eyes, Monica’s positive that she’s still unconscious.

Then she reaches out, immediately feeling an energy signature both different and familiar, and realizes she’s not quite awake either.

It’s not her own dream, that much she knows for certain. Her dreams usually involve fire, soothing and comforting or scathing and all-consuming. 

This? This is different.

At first, it’s just a path of stones, red energy spilling over them like stringy strands of syrup. Monica ascends them and eventually finding herself standing before a giant pool of red syrup matter. She stands there a moment, hesitating, before jumping in feet first. 

She falls for a moment. Plummeting, like a stone in an eternal freefall. And Monica panics because it feels like she’s slipping through the earth. Like all her efforts and all her coping mechanisms and pretending have been for not, like it’s all lead her here, to where her powers, ultimately, turned out to be stronger than her.

But just like that, the moment’s over, and Monica finds herself topside once more. She inhales, the diaphragm expanding as if nothing had happened. She bends over, brushes her locks out of her face, and looks up, startled by what she finds.

The syrup is gone, replaced, instead, by a small village sitting at the top of a hill. Monica blinks, and, suddenly, she’s at the village, staring as chaos reigns, frightened families seeking shelter from a threat she cannot perceive. She reaches out, but her hands are solid, and there’s no energy within her to expel; she has no power here. 

Behind her, the door to a house flies open, and a man and a woman spill out, dropping two bundles of cloth, one red and the other blue, onto the ground. The bundles unfurl, and the wind carries them away, to parts unknown while the man and the woman collapse into a pile of dust-ridden bones.

“Wanda”, Monica calls out, but she has no voice.

The door to the house adjacent opens, and this time, it’s another man, younger than the one before; his hair is white, the tips colored blue, and there’s an A sewed into the breast of his shirt. He takes a step forward, and he jerks, ten times in rapid succession, before he collapses to the ground. When he falls, his body remains.

“Wanda?”. She steps backwards and collides into someone’s chest. She whips around and goes still at the sight of her face reflected back at her. She knows it’s not Andromeda. Monica gulps and opens her mouth to say something. But in that moment, the double cries out, hands flying over her ears as she crouches to the ground; the woman pulls her knees close to her chest, rocking back and forward as the light around her goes dim, darkness inching closer like a shadow. The double looks up, eyes brimming with terror and tears, before she’s consumed entirely.

“Wanda!”, Monica shouts, forcing herself to keep her eyes open.

The village peels, buildings falling over like clay dough in water. Monica pants and looks around, running once she sees sight of a trail of red seeping from around the corner.

There’s a well a few meters down, and there sits Wanda, back to the village as she stares down at the water. Monica blinks, and she’s standing beside Wanda, heart thick in her throat. When she reaches for Wanda, her powers are back, and she’s in Wanda’s room.

They both inhale, and, just like that, all the floating inhabitants of the room go crashing to the floor. Wanda, Monica, and the bed remain suspended in the air.

“It’s okay”, Monica says. She keeps her arms at her sides before swallowing and wrapping them around Wanda. Wanda doesn’t push her away, instead pushing closer like there’s no where else she’d rather be. “I’m here”, Monica whispers; she presses her lips against Wanda’s ear and sighs. “I’m here.”   
She can feel it. Wanda’s memories trickling into her like water into a sink basin. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not exactly a comfortable feeling either. The memories, the emotions, the thoughts, they all filter in like through a dirty window screen, so Monica only has a distorted version of them.

But Monica won’t reject them. She’d never reject any part of Wanda.

Wanda starts to tremble, so Monica pushes closer against her, hushing her as the trembles collapse into sobs. 

“I’m not going anywhere”, Monica whispers, and, if anything, Wanda just cries harder.

. . .

She doesn’t move in with Wanda, even though she’d be more than willing to. Wanda doesn’t seem to put off by the idea either. In fact, she spends the following night sending out longing vibes to Monica.

It makes Monica feel both restless and lonely. She can’t imagine how Wanda’s fairing.

“Maybe you guys need space”, Johnny suggests after Monica divulges the issue with him one night in the kitchen. He scoops some ice cream into a bowl, then passes the container back to her. “I mean...things did get pretty intense between you pretty quick.”   
“You say that like it’s a bad thing”, Monica says; she can hear the defensive note in her voice. She doesn’t bother trying to alleviate it.

“I’m not, I’m not. I just...listen, she’s been at this longer. She’s had her powers since she was a kid. I think she’d know more about the whole...energy thing.”

“I miss her”, Monica murmurs, staring glumly at her three scoops of cookie dough ice cream.

“I know.” He reaches over the table, and a purple flame emerges from where their fingers interlock. “Just give it time.”

_ ...I miss you, too _ , Wanda thinks, then cringes from the other end of their bond before disappearing once more, leaving Monica feeling all the more colder.

“Your ice-cream’s melting”, Johnny notes.

Monica notes, scooping the ice cream into her mouth. It doesn’t taste as good as it usually would.

. . .

There’s a Unicorn Explosion (patent pending) over Ocean Avenue. Monica’s the first on the scene, with Natasha, Steve, and Wanda following shortly after.

Between the three of them, they manage to get the flustered unicorns sectioned off in a nearby park. While Natasha’s calling in whoever you call in for unicorns, Monica stands there, trying very hard not to look at Wanda.

Which is weird, given that in the past few months, all she’d done is look at Wanda unabashedly. 

It must be just as uncomfortable for Wanda because after a while, Wanda clears her throat and mutters something about going to get doughnuts.

“That was weird”, Steve points out, voice apologetic.

“No, it wasn’t.”   
“It kinda was”, Nat says, brows drawn together. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Which is partially true. Nothing had happened. If you consider “everything” nothing. 

There’s a pulse in their bond, guilt and fear passing between them both. Monica shudders, and Steve cocks his head to the side. Nat looks up from where she’s texting someone, eyes tender as she watches her. “Nicki”, she says.

“I’m gonna go help her with those doughnuts”, Monica mutters, pointing at them both as she floats into the air. 

. . .

She hadn’t left for doughnuts. In fact, Monica doubts she was coming back at all. Which, in and of itself isn’t too bad a fact unless you consider it in a greater context, in which case it’s quite possibly the worst thing she’s ever considered.

Wanda’s back up on the suspenders of the Manhattan Bridge, where Wanda had first sought her out . It seems almost poetic. Monica doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

“Why did you dream me dying?”, Monica questions from where she hovers before her.

Wanda won’t meet her eye.

“I meant what I said. I don’t want things to change.” She draws closer, slowly enough that Wanda has the chance to tell her to stop. When she doesn’t, she places her hands on Wanda’s thighs, lingering there; it’s a loving embrace, even if the rawness of their bond suggests otherwise. 

Wanda’s hand settles upon Monica’s head, fingers weaving throughout the curls arching up from her scalp. Monica closes her eyes, content to just lie there as Wanda’s energy tentatively seeks hers out.

“I don’t ever wanna lose you”, Wanda murmurs, and, in more ways than one, Monica can feel her pulling away.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not going anywhere.” She says this stubbornly, resolutely. There’s a part of her that thinks the promise could carry the world. Then there’s another part, the part that often makes her choke on her own breath, that knows her word alone doesn’t weigh much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


	13. Chapter 13

She’s standing in line at an ATM when Stephen steps through a portal, Wanda in tow, and tells her to come with him. Distractedly, Monica shoves the three twenties into her pocket and watches Wanda, who, in turn, watches the ground. Monica blinks, clears her throat, and looks at Stephen, eyebrows raised in question.

“Come on”, he merely says, grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her through the portal. “It’s time for your checkup.”

“There’s a Mean Girls reference somewhere in there”, she says, and Stephen snickers as he leads her through what looks the entrance of what looks like an ancient library.

“You live here?”, she ponders, not trying to keep the awe out of her voice.

“Yeah. It’s a work perk.” He begins to ascend the stairs, talking as he goes. “I was in Taiwan for a family reunion, and I had an idea.” His cloak rushes to greet him, and he smiles, letting it rub against his cheek before clasping it around his neck. “You guys are two of, if not the, strongest people on Earth.” He enters a room full of display cases, pausing before one of two figurines. 

“Right”, Wanda says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, it got me thinking.” He takes the figurines out of their case and passes one to either of them. Monica fingers hers, noting the grooves and patterns etched into the wood. “Those samples I took of your energies?” Tendrils of green encircle the figurines and propel them above their heads. “They’re displaying signs of homeostasis.”   
Monica frowns and cocks her head to the side. “I thought that only happened in a single body.”   
Stephen smiles. “Exactly.” He clenches his hands into fists, and the figurines draw closer. As Monica watches, the two energies surrounding the figurines, each initially with its distinct energy patterns, begins to merge and become something entirely new but, at the same time, also familiar. “Your energies are lonely, for lack of a better word. Being that they’re so similar, in strength and design, they’ve seemed to have recognized it in each other.” He leans back against the wall, pulls a packet of Crunch Bites out of his pocket, and begins to eat them. “They’re converting, adjusting, to create some sort of new “normal” to combat the merge; becoming two sides of the same coin, if you will.” 

Wanda merely breathes, darts her eyes to Monica and says, “W-What gave you the idea?”

Stephen shrugs. “My mom and my āyí were talking about soulmates.” 

He continues on for a while after that, but Monica’s not listening. She’s watching Wanda, the way her jaw clenches and the air surrounding her begins to shrink, to collapse on itself. She stares, so hard that she’s certain she knows she’s looking. She’s willing Wanda to look at her, but Wanda’s steadfastly doing anything but that, staring blankly at the figurines above her head.

“...Course the entire concept of soulmates is watered down”, Stephen’s saying, his words embittered. “They can be romantic, but there are also familial and platonic relationships, but no one thinks to turn those into blockbusters.”

“What does it mean?”, Wanda asks; she doesn’t sound as surprised as she had before. There’s an edge to her voice, one which Monica hasn’t heard in months. Monica wants to reach out, to soothe it, soothe her, envelope Wanda in her warmth and security, anything to make that sound go away.

But Wanda won’t even look at her. Something tells Monica that if she were to touch her, it wouldn’t exactly be welcomed.

“Your energies are linked”, Stephen’s saying, exchanging a look between them both. “It can mean a lot of things.”   
“Well.” Wanda nods, then turns around and starts to leave. “Thank you for the wonderful insight.”   
Monica starts after her, but Stephen grabs her arm gently before his hand phases clean through it. “Nicki”, he says with a sigh. “It’s best to leave her be when she gets like this.”   
Monica just frowns and stares at him. “I don’t get it”, she says eventually. “Is it me she has a problem with or-or the bond?”   
His gaze turns soft, sympathetic. “It might be both.”   
Well. If that doesn’t make her feel like shit. 

“Just give her some time”, Stephen advises as he guides her down the stairs. “She doesn’t open up to people easily.”   
Monica nods at that, despite thinking,  _ knowing _ , that that’s not it. It may have taken some time to befriend Wanda, but they’re way past that point. The very concept of “friends” is an object that’s long since receded in the rearview mirror of their relationship. She couldn’t put a name to what they are now, but she knows it’s strong; she’s knows it’s intimate.

And then there’s this. This awkward, grating atmosphere that’s eagerly embraced them from the moment of their return. It’s something new, something different. As far as Monica knows, it has nothing to do with their relationship.

Whatever it is...it sure is doing a number on said relationship.

“Wong and I are having a Star Wars marathon”, Stephen says, watching as Monica lingers awkwardly at the door.

Monica tilts her head back and sighs, pushing the thought of Wanda leaving to the back of her mind. It doesn’t help much. Not when the traces of Wanda’s energy still linger like a pervascent perfume. She wipes a hand over her face and heaves out a tired breath. “We’re going in order of release.”   
Stephen smiles softly, tossing an arm over her shoulder and pulling her close. “Deal.”

She allows herself to be pulled throughout the halls, to where a projector’s been set up in what is definitely a library. She sits down, getting lost in tales of galactic war and romance, all the while thinking of how much colder the room had seemed once Wanda left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what y'all are thinking. Drop a comment if you wanna talk about how the story's going.  
See y'all Saturday. Thanks for reading. I really appreciate it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo we've got about ten pages left of this fic. It might be a little more depending on how editing goes, but we'll be winding down in a few weeks so keep that in mind. I still plan on doing a sequel for this, but it might be a while 'til it goes online cuz Imma be busy with other stories for a good minute.  
Anyway, let's get to the story.

“Nicki. Are you all right?”   
Monica tugs her blanket higher up over her head, pressing her face further into her pillow. Her eyes blink tiredly against the blinding glare of her phone. She bites her lip and opens her messages once more; she’s not surprised to see there’s nothing new, but the disappointment still feels fresh.

“Nicki”, Johnny’s voice carries in from behind her. “Don’t you maybe wanna get up? Get something to eat...take a shower?”

“Johnny”, Andromeda says, disapproval evident in her tone.

“I’m joking.” He falters, then says, to Monica, “It-it was a joke, Nicki”.

“Mm hm.” She’s almost certain it isn’t. She hasn’t showered in three weeks and hasn’t worn any deodorant in two. She’d like to; she misses smelling nice, feeling  _ clean _ . But if she showers, she might miss a message from Wanda. And even if she doesn’t, she doesn’t really feel like taking a shower. She doesn’t want the effort it takes to get clean, she just wants to suddenly be clean. Maybe that makes her lazy. Maybe it makes her depressed.

Regardless, she’s not in the mood to do something about it.

“Monica”, Andromeda says, pulling Monica’s blanket away. Monica glares, moving to snatch it back. But ‘Meda’s grip is strong. And she’s just as stubborn as Monica is. “Get the fuck up. It’s been a month. You need to pull it the fuck together.”

“I am fucking together”, Monica grumbles. She grabs the T.V. remote from her nightstand and hurls it at Andromeda, narrowly avoiding hitting her in the face. Monica ignores the glare she sends her in favor of turning on her side and opening her messages once more. “I’m fine.”   
“No, Nicki, you’re fucking depressed.” Johnny sighs, and the air fills with the sound of a spontaneous combustion. “Why don’t you call your shrink?”

“Because I don’t fucking need one!” Monica sits up; with a gasp, a surge of gamma rays expels from her core. She pants, lifting a shaking a hand to her mouth. She gulps, blinks her eyes rapidly at the sudden onslaught of tears, and takes a deep breath. When she turns around, she finds Johnny glaring at her, palms out to the ball of fire he’s summoned around he and Andromeda. Monica grits her teeth, breathing heavily as she watches them.

“Come on, ‘Meda”, Johnny says, starting towards the door. “It’s better to leave her alone when she gets like this.”

Monica clenches and unclenches her fists, watching as they leave. Johnny hesitates between the doorway, irises consumed by a subtle flame. Words clog up in her throat, and tears burn in her eyes. Monica turns her back to him and pulls her knees to her chest.

The door slams shut, followed by the closing of another not even a minute later.

Acid courses down her cheeks, and her teeth feel like they’re about to shatter from how hard she’s gnashing them.

She doesn’t have any new messages.

But she can feel her. She can feel Wanda reaching out, hesitant, as if, somehow, she’d felt Monica’s distress. A tendril of curiosity, probing for Monica’s energy until she comes upon it. Monica knows how it must feel. Charred and jagged, like a piece of rock after a volcanic eruption. The touch of Wanda recoils immediately at the feel of hers, but it lingers, crying out unbearably before retreating once more.

Monica inhales deeply, staring, wide-eyed at her phone. There’s nothing.

Nothing.

. . .

August 17th, 2021, 2:21 am

_ Hey just checking to see if you’re okay. _

_ 2:21 am _

_ I know those Doombots can really pack a punch, just wanted to be sure. _

_ 2:22 am _

_ I’m watching the news, I promise I’m not being a creeper :D _

“That’s totally what a creeper would say”, Monica sighs to herself, fishing a sweet pickle into her mouth. She snaps a picture of the T.V., then sends it to Wanda. 

_ 2:24 am _

_ See? No creepers round these parts. _

Monica eats the remainder of the pickles, then looks at the alarm clock perched on the other side of the couch. 2:40. She looks down at her phone.

No new messages.

“She’s probably busy”, she says in an airy voice. Her leg bounces, and she stares at her jar of pickles, watching as the green, iron-rich juice splashes up and over her fingers. Monica pops her lips, flying into the kitchen. “I should eat something.”

. . .

_ August 19th, 2021, 7:03 pm _

_ The Six just kidnapped the mayor. You want in? _

“Monica”, Tony strains, struggling underneath the ten-ton hand of sand crushing him. “We could really use a hand over here.”

_ 7:03 pm _

_ I’d get it if you didn’t so no pressure or anything lol. _

“Steve”, Tony shouts. “Any advice?”   
“It’s obviously important”, Steve grunts, tossing his shield clear through Sandman’s hand and freeing Tony. “Just give her a minute.”

“I’ve given her a minute”, he grumbles; he accepts Steve’s hand, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet just before they both get slammed by a bolt from Electro.

_ 7:05 pm _

_ Remember that time with Doc Ock? That was fun. _

“Monica!”

“All right, all right.” She slips her phone into her pocket, then, shoulders drooping, flies back into battle.

. . .

_ August 22, 2021, 12:23pm _

_ Did those meetings ever help? _

“Lady”, a woman with sleepy eyes says to her on the train. “You think you could fuckin’ move?”

_ 12:23 pm _

_ “I heard that Professor was thinking of setting a center up here.” _

“Just-just scoot like an inch”, the woman carries on tiredly.

Monica continues to grip tightly onto the railing above her, lip bleeding from the pressure of her teeth. She thinks back to Seattle and how Wanda had neglected to ask her to attend her meetings. Maybe she’d been waiting for Monica to ask first?

_ 12:24pm _

_ “I’d go with you if you wanted. _

_ 12:25pm _

_ I mean I’d hate it but I’d still go. _

_ 12:26pm  _

_ I wouldn’t hate it if you were there tho.  _

It’s there again. That feeling that she’s right there with her, suffering just as much as she is. In some twisted way, it almost comforts Monica. At least now she knows she’s not the only one in pain.

_ Monica _ , Wanda whispers, voice broken beyond recognition. Monica opens her mouth to answer. But panic filters throughout their bond, and it doesn’t belong to her. Wanda takes in a sharp breath, and just like that, she’s gone again. And Monica’s alone again.

“For fuck’s sake”, the lady says and moves to push past her, but Monica’s already turned invisible and intangible and walked through the wall of the train.

She still doesn’t have any new messages.

. . .

_ August 30, 2021, 7:51am _

_ I’m sorry. _

Monica pushes the coffee cups and burger cartons off her couch, curling in on her side as she stares at her messages. There’s three from Johnny, a few from her parents, and a dozen others from everyone else she’s been avoiding. If she were to scroll upward, she’d seen an entire wall of blue. Before it, there’s an interaction of blue and yellow, equal amounts of text. That’d been before their visit to Stephen, though.

_ 7:54am _

_ We don’t have to be soulmates _

_ 7:56am _

_ I don’t even like soulmates _

_ But I like you _ , Monica thinks, wincing as she moves her arm and pulls it back to find it sticky with ketchup. 

_ 7:59am _

_ Lol I have ketchup on my arm. _

Her chest draws tight, like elastic energy gathering just before a spring popd free. She stares at the screen, willing for a text to come through,  _ one from Wanda _ . Even a dismissal at this point would be more than welcome.

Evidently, she’s not even worth that.

. . .

She’s more than aware that things are getting bad again.

She’s been here before, been down and out and irritable and self-loathing and  _ hurting _ . But that was months ago, before she’d met Wanda, before her entire universe had been turned on its head. She’d been hoping that with her...she’d been hoping that things would be different.

_ “You love with your everything” _ , Maria had said.

Wanda’s gone now, and she’s taken her love with her. And more than ever, Monica feels like nothing.

Like nothing at all.

. . .

She has a dream. Wanda’s dream.

It’s her double again, except this time, when it goes dark, it goes light again. And all the while, the double is screaming as her light is flickered on and off like a light-switch.

In her peripheral, Monica can perceive the presence of red, petrified beyond her field of vision. No matter how much she tries to find it, it stays beyond her reach, and she’s forced to watch as she dies. Over and over again.

. . .

Monica’s in the middle of personally introducing Felicia’s face with the shiny, hardwood floors of MSG when she accidentally lets loose a massive surge of cosmic energy.

Obviously, it’s an accident. After years of routine check-ups, she knows exactly the kind of damage she’s capable of. The only way something like  _ this _ would happen would be by accident. She tries to explain this to the cops that detain her, but, as you can imagine, it doesn’t amount to much.

The radiation branch of Damage Control comes and quarantines her. She sits there for a few hours, fingers twitching for her phone, until Johnny and Carol’s energies filter into the makeshift base that’s been set up. 

Monica sits there in her bed, watching them watch her from beyond the glass like she’s some kind of delicate thing. “For fuck’s sake”, she murmurs, turning her gaze to the floor.

Johnny disappears for a while, leaving just Carol behind. She smiles, pressing her palm up against the glass. “Hey, babe.”

Monica closes her eyes and drops her elbows onto her thighs. “Hey, mom.”

“...Why didn’t you tell us? You know we would’ve flown out.”   
“I don’t need the whole family to uproot their entire life every time I have an episode.” She wipes a hand over her face and sighs. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Carol raises her eyebrows, and Monica scowls. “Usually, anyway.”

Johnny returns then, seeming both tired and annoyed. “Come on”, he says as the glass wall begins to ascend into the ceiling. “They’re letting you out.”   
“Let me guess, house arrest?”, she quips with a glance at him. Johnny just sighs and pulls her in for a rough hug.

After a half-hearted scolding from Hoag, they wind up going back to the apartment. Funnily enough, it’s only once she’s stepped past the threshold that she actually feels tired.

“Mom, I’m fine”, Monica murmurs, pushing away Carol’s worrying hands as she walks through the door and into the house. She takes a moment to stare at the mess that’s become of the apartment. She usually keeps this place looking like something out of a magazine, but now, there are food packages and bottles strewn all out.

But even then, the embarrassment is only there for a moment. Because in the next, the exhaustion is back, laying upon her like some ancient, hairy beast.

“Mom, you can have my room.” Monica brushes some shit off the couch and moves to lie down there, but Johnny just grabs her by the hand and gives her a pointed look. “You can have my room”, he tells her, arms crossed over his chest. 

Monica glowers at him. “Where are you gonna sleep?”

“Trust me, Nicki, I doubt I’m gonna be getting any sleep tonight.”

Monica winces at that. Johnny either doesn’t see this or ignores it. Either way, he waves her goodnight, then turns to Carol to help her settle in.

. . .

_ September 3, 2021 1:46pm _

_ Hey. _

Monica stares at the screen, watching, staring, hoping to make some sense of the words.

She turns over onto her back and stares up at the ceiling of her room, which has become rich with static from the electrical energy she exerts.

Two months of radio silence. And then “Hey”.

Monica tucks her phone underneath her pillow and closes her eyes. She thinks in radio waves and says, “Johnny?” 

From the kitchen comes, “Yeah?” 

She’s quiet a moment. Then she says, “Can you come here?” 

He’s in his room a few minutes later, crawling into her bed and wrapping his arms around her. Monica just breathes and presses closer against him, savoring his touch.

“I’m sorry for being a dick”, Monica whispers.

“It’s okay. Just get some sleep.”

Monica thinks of Wanda’s single text underneath her head. And then, for the first time in what feels like years, she goes to sleep.

. . .

She calls her shrink, at Carol’s rather insistent advice, come sunup.

And then she goes back to bed.

. . .

At the doc’s advice, Monica takes a while to herself. More avenging, more time with friends and family, more effort into keeping the apartment together. Less than focusing on Wanda, who, after all that grief, has finally, one by one, begun to answer Monica’s messages.

It’s easy enough, keeping herself distracted. There’s always someone to save, always another movie to watch, always something to clean, always  _ something _ . 

And afterall, that was what she wanted. To have something to do, something to keep her from obsessing over the fact that she was no longer human, it’s just… it’s different now. Not so much worse.

But definitely different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a weird chapter. I was gonna break it into parts of three, but they're not really long enough or strong enough (excluding Wanda's but even that one's kinda short) to stand on their own.  
Anyway. Shit's been kinda busy and draining for me lately so sorry about the lack of update Monday. I'm not feeling the greatest these days, but I'm gonna try to stick to my schedule. If not twice a week, then we might go back to once, but I'm really trying to avoid that. There's not much of the story left anyway, about six pages that might turn out to be more once I get to editing them.  
On a less depressing note, have y'all heard WandaVision's release date got pushed up to late 2020? I don't know if that's confirmed or not, but if it is, that's two badass marvel shows debuting in a single year. How cool is that?

It comes to her, whilst she, Andromeda, and Johnny are baking cookies, that she’s gotten better at managing her form.

Make no mistake, she can’t go a day without flickering, but it’s not as hard to turn back now. When she sees her shrink, he says it’s because she’s forming new relationships and redefining her place in the world. 

She doesn’t know about all that, but she definitely does feel better. Emotionally speaking, she’s still a wreck, floundering between feeling nothing at all and everything all at once. But in the moments when her heart’s beating right, life’s pretty much decent.

From an objective standpoint, that’s probably anything but decent. But it’s better than where she was a few weeks ago so.

She’ll take it.

“There are Spectrum action figures on the shelves now”, Uncle Nick says when they’re out for lunch. He snickers around his cinnamon bun and shakes his head. “My little Nicki.”   
Monica smiles. She lets her toes touch the linoleum floor beneath her and drops her arms against the surface of the table. She can’t help but be aware of how sticky the floor is and how the air-conditioner is just a few degrees too cold. It’s nice. Distracting. Monica drags her feet forward and backwards beneath her and nods. “I’ve been thinking”, she eventually says and takes a sip at her hot cocoa. “I think I wanna be an Avenger.”   
Nick looks up at her. He lowers his glasses and just looks at her. Within his eyes, there’s happiness but also uncertainty. An uncertainty laced with worry and precaution. Monica just sits there, staring back at him. His reaction comes as no surprise. There’s a reason they’ve spent so long dancing around officiating it. Even excluding the paperwork, there’s a lot more expected of supers once they accept the “A” stamp of approval. And with her powers as fucked as they’ve been, it would have just made the whole thing a headache.

But her powers are better now. And weird as it sounds, she thinks this is a good as she’s gonna get. 

At the very least, it’ll give her something to do. Something to keep her mind occupied.

Monica brushes her locks out of her face and smiles, putting as much effort into it as she stand. “I think I can handle it.”

Nick just watches her. Along with uncertainty, there’s also anxiety, as well as a bit of suspicion. Monica reaches across the table and grabs his hand. She gives it a squeeze and inhales sharply. “I can handle it.”

He smiles, but it’s a faint gesture, diluted in its usual luminosity.   
Monica turns her gaze back to her mug, ignoring the way the lights above them flicker. 

And if the feel of losing control feels a bit different, a bit weaker than it ever has, well, that’s her own business.

. . .

She wakes in the middle of the night to the sight of wisps of red spilling over her bed. Monica startles up, watching the trail of crimson as it bleeds across her floors and in from her window like a bloody mist. Without a second thought, she flies out of bed, out the window, and follows the trail.

It leads her to a butterfly sanctuary just a few blocks over. It’s there that she finds Wanda crouched before a field of poppies, painted ladies and metalmarks resting in her hair. 

For the amount of grief the act causes her, Monica doesn’t actually need to breathe. She’s never been quite as grateful for that fact. If her respiratory system had still been working, she’s pretty sure it would’ve failed in this moment. 

Wanda doesn’t turn around, not even when Monica’s feet reach the soil beneath them, crunching against the drying leaves of a fleeting summer.

“Did I wake you?”, Wanda asks, her back still to Monica. She’s wearing shorts and a tank top. It’s a warm night out, but it’s a far cry from the jeans and long-sleeves Monica’s used to seeing her in.

There are candles surrounding her, with the words of a language she does not speak printed against the glass.  _ Yahrzeit _ , comes to her, a single word amongst many forgotten from the Judaism course she took as an undergraduate. All at once, the ground feels fragile and the air soft and dainty and delicate, like feathers. She doesn’t need to reach out into their bond to know this sensation is not just grounded in reality. She has her brain to tell her she should not be her.

But her heart tells her this is exactly where she needs to be. Even if in the next second, it’s also telling her that she needs to run, far, far away.

“No. No, uh, I was already up. Insomnia...and all that.” It’s a lie. She suspects Wanda knows this. Nonetheless, she sits down beside her, careful to shoo away any butterflies befores she does so. “I uh...I saw your...energy. I didn’t just-just barge in on you and-”   
“I’m glad you’re here”, Wanda cuts in. She glances at her out of the corner of her eye, then turns back to look at the poppies. The earth’s deeper there, like a mini sinkhole opened up there for the sole purpose of housing those poppies. Wanda reaches forth and pulls one free from the bundle, twirling it about in her fingers. She places a hand down at her side, and  _ life _ pulses from her. Apprehensively, Monica places hers down beside it, the sides of their pinkies just barely touching.

“I didn’t think you wanted me here”, Monica chokes out, and, all at once, she can’t breathe. 

“Larynx, trachea, diaphragm, sinuses”, Wanda mutters, pulsing calmness and centeredness out into the bond. Beneath that, there’s also regret and, surprisingly, a bit of embarrassment. Monica would look deeper, but the bond between them is tentative; frail. She’s not sure what is and isn’t welcome right now.

“Do you need your inhaler?”, Wanda asks, the words coming out uncertain.

“No. I’m fine.” Monica adjusts her bonnet, then looks at her, then at the poppies, and then the candle. Wanda had called out to her. Unintentionally, of course, but she’d done so all the same. Monica folds her hands in her lap and clears her throat. “Did you want to talk?”

_ Yearning _ , from Wanda to Monica. It’s about the only thing she seems willing to let Monica feel these days. But even that yearning is usually followed by a surge of frustration.

“I’m here if you do”, Monica says softly, watching as a swarm of butterflies descend upon her shoes. A monarch clings to her ankle, bearing its beautiful, multi-colored wings up at her. Monica expels a stream of light and catches it, pushing it against the faint wind until it can land upon Wanda’s shoulder.

“I lost my brother today”, Wanda says; she lifts a hand, and the butterfly jumps onto it, seemingly watching her before giving a soft flap of its wings. Around them, the wind slips between and through the grass, singing, humming. It blows against them, warm and inviting; sheltering. “April, if you want to be technical. But today.” Wanda digs her fingers into the dirt and keeps it there, hidden from the world above. “Today was the last day I could sense him.” Her candles glow dimmer, and the  _ life _ between them grows pained. “Six years ago, today.”

Monica lifts her pinkie and drops it over Wanda’s. Wanda takes in a sharp breath and closes her eyes.

“I’m not who you want me to be”, Wanda says suddenly, fully looking at her now. Her butterflies remain in her hair, merely giving their wings a few, light beats. 

Monica swallows and opens her mouth to protest. “We don’t have to-”   
“Whatever you see in me”, Wanda states, that calm, calculating tone from before back in her voice. “Whatever you  _ feel _ in me, it’s not reality.” Her finger twitches, and she pulls it away. Monica tries to pretend she doesn’t feel as cold as she does. “The people I care about-”   
“Don’t give me that bullshit”, Monica says, eyes narrowing. “This isn’t Mario Kart, and I ain’t Peach. I know the stakes, I’ve been living with ‘em for years.”

“It’s different”, Wanda says, shaking her head. “It’s different for us. You’ll know it when you lose someone.”   
“And what makes you think you’ll lose me?” She wants to be angry. But mostly she just feels lost, confused, like she had in those early days as Spectrum. “Look at me, Wanda. You can’t kill light.”

Wanda gives her a watery smile. “And nothing’s faster than sound, right?” She turns, and the butterflies clinging to them both rise and revolve until they each have a mixture of the other’s. She sets the tips of her fingers on Monica’s and breathes. “I can’t lose anyone else. I really can’t.”   
Her parents. Her brother. Vision. Monica doesn’t blame her for wanting to shut everyone out. And knowing what she does about their bond, she knows it’d be even worse. She can feel Wanda’s hurt from miles away. She doesn’t want to know what her absence, her  _ true _ absence, would feel like.

“You could have told me”, Monica says, and Wanda flinches. Monica can’t find it in herself to care. “You didn’t have to ghost me.”

“If I told you, you just would’ve pushed closer.” Wanda looks at her, and her eyes are red, burning bright. “You would’ve strengthened the bond, whether you meant to or not. And then where would we be?”   
_ In a place where we love each other.  _ To the average person, it wouldn’t sound like a bad thing. But they aren’t average people, and neither is what they are to each other. They could talk about this all day, but it wouldn’t change the fact that it would literally break them to lose each other.

For a moment, she thinks maybe they shouldn’t be anything at all to each other. And then she  _ panics _ because fuck that. It wouldn’t kill her, but it wouldn’t do her any good.

It wouldn’t do either of them any good.

It makes her want to scream. They’re back to square one, and there hadn’t been much there to begin with. 

But even now, when Wanda reads so different, Monica knows that this time around, square one means something different. Because they may not have much, but they do have each other.

And that ought to count for something.

“Tell me about Pietro.” Wanda looks up, blinking fat tears from her lashes and sniffles. “This is his night. Not ours.” Monica softens her voice and taps their fingers together. “Tell me about him.”

Wanda’s tears begin to flow more freely. Her breath rattles in her chest, and red spills from her like a weeping volcano. Monica grits her teeth, steeling herself against the sudden attack of  _ remorse  _ and  _ guilt  _ and  _ anguish _ . “He hadn’t wanted to help”, Wanda whispers, her voice wavering. “It was my idea to say ‘yes’ to the Accords. He would have never-”   
“Wanda.” It takes everything in her being not to reach for her hand, but she manages it, somehow. She can picture herself holding Wanda’s face in her hands, brushing away the tears she so seldom allows herself to shed. “Tell me about Pietro.” When Wanda opens her mouth to respond, Monica shakes her head and says, “Not his death. Tell me about before”.

Wanda’s quiet for a second. And then, her shoulders shaking and her chest heaving, she laughs, tears still streaming down her face. “He was such an asshole”, she hiccups, smiling for the first time that night.

. . .

They set boundaries. No touching. 

But talking?

Talking’s good.

. . .

“I just don’t get it.”

Monica hums and swipes left across her phone screen, her thumb lingering on the image that comes up. It’s her and Wanda, standing before a giant water fountain with a mermaid spitting water out at them. She swallows, eyes focusing on the small but radiant smile upon Wanda’s face.

“We’re supposed to be a team, so why do we need a ‘unanimous, anointed president?” Johnny grumbles something, fumbling with the zipper of his suit before lifting his hands to wipe them over his face. “This is how bands turn into ‘happily-functioning solo artists’, you know that, right?”

Monica swipes once more, her heart beating frantically in her chest before dissolving into pure energy at a picture of Wanda standing on a pier, the sun setting behind her in the background.

“It’s not like I actually like those assholes or anything”, Johnny murmurs, kicking at the floor. “But I mean, we were just starting to not hate each other, so it kinda sucks that they’re dropping this on us now. Ben was talking about matching t-shirts…”

She rolls her eyes at a picture of herself in bed, an unflattering trail of drool dripping down her chin. She remembers waking up in the middle of that and the ensuing wrestle for the phone afterwards.

“Maybe it’s for the best, though. Two teams is a little much, isn’t it?” He frowns and looks over at her. “Nicki?”   
“Mm?”   
He huffs, crossing his arms over his chest as he shakes his head at her. “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just having a crisis; nothing important.”   
At that, Monica sits up, guilt settling deep within her. She sets her phone down and crawls off the couch, floating towards him slowly. “Sorry”, she says, feeling her body shift over to something warm and restless. “I-something you said about Ben?”   
Johnny just looks at her for a minute. And then he asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She brushes at an intangible lock, crossing her legs as she watches him. “What?”

Johnny cocks his head to the side. He looks to her phone, where a picture of she and Wanda taking a selfie on the Space Needle is proudly displayed. Then he looks back to her, eyes curious as he asks, “Why are you here?” 

Monica winces. “Johnny, I’m sorry. I’m always here to listen, I promise-” 

“No, no, no.” He waves a hand through the air, shifting over to his fire form and floating up to her height. “I mean, why are you here making hearteyes at pictures of Wanda when you could be making hearteyes at the real Wanda?” 

Monica thinks on it for a moment. She averts her gaze to where her phone lays abandoned on the couch. “Cause…” She blinks and shrugs. “Cause real Wanda doesn’t want me making hearteyes at her.” Johnnys’s eyes turn sympathetic, but she just shrugs and continues on. “But enough about that.” She leans forward, propping her chin up in the palm of her hand. “What’s up with this ‘anointed president’ thing?” 

“Nicki-”, he starts softly.

“I’m fine, Johnny. Really.” Really, she is. Sure, it’d be nice if she and Wanda could be more than friends. But it’s honestly amazing just being friends. Wanda’s a great person, and the fact that they have a relationship at all is honestly astonishing. 

Besides, she knows how Wanda is about intimacy. She wouldn’t risk a romantic relationship with her by making her uncomfortable. 

Monica looks up, finds Johnny’s still watching her worriedly, and smiles. These past few years, he’s been here for her in ways she’s beyond grateful for. It’s not often that he shares his own problems with people. Part of it’s cause he’s pretty fucking stubborn, and part of it’s cause of his powers. There aren’t many supers with Enhancements like theirs and even fewer that he trusts.

Johnny trusts her. She doesn’t want him second-guessing that decision.

She releases a tendril of her energy, smirking as he rolls his eyes and swats at it. “Now, spill”, she says with a nod.

The pictures can wait until later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. From my notes, we've got about two chapters next, and the next one's gonna be a rollercoaster of emotions. Shocking, I know.  
Anyway, thanks to everyone who's stuck around. I see the hits increasing with each update (and lack of), and it really means a lot that a story I posted back in October still has an audience. And to the people who've commented and left kudos and bookmarks and everything. Y'all make it really worth continuing this even when I don't feel like it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all! We're at the end of the line! There'll be an epilogue up next week, but, officially speaking, this is the end of the story.  
I was actually really excited about this chapter, it was one of my favorite to write. I hope you like it!

The banquet comes far too quickly for Monica’s tastes.

The change in seasons fucks with her allergies and her energy; upcoming elections means having to deal with politicians either kissing her ass or berating her for not doing more; and with air season coming to an end, there’s an ever-looming reminder of all she’s left behind since leaving the military.

So yeah. There’s already a lot going on, and the last thing she wants is to attend a party full of warm, sweaty, electric bodies.

But she made a promise to Wanda. And Monica Rambeau always keeps her promises.

When she pulls her dress free of its plastic wrap, her stomach roils at the overwhelming stench of formaldehyde. She pulls the dress over her head, fighting back the urge to gag, and just stares at herself in the mirror, at the beads of sweat dotting her hairline and the flecks of light seeping through her skin.

_ I look weird _ , she thinks and realizes it’s been years since she’s last worn a dress. Sophomore year at college, if she’s remembering correctly. She hadn’t felt weird then. In fact, she’d felt

_ normal. _

Monica brushes her fingers over her legs, letting them tangle in the hair zipping up and down her legs and just focuses on the feel of the fibers before pulling away. She lowers herself to the floor, then sets about taking down her braids until just an afro of thick curls spill over her shoulders. Monica breathes in, counts down from fifty, and nods. With her hair hanging loose and the leggings now adorning her legs, she feels much more comfortable.

Wanda arrives a little while later, wearing a white dresses that sparkles brighter than any sun she could ever dream of and a matching purse. Wanda smiles, shifting her purse from one hand to the other, and gestures to the limo down the steps.

“Your chariot awaits”, Wanda says, wiggling her eyebrow, and Monica feels some of the remaining anxiety peel away from her. When Wanda sticks out a hand, she doesn’t hesitate to grab it.

The cushions in the limo are too soft. To be fair, just about everything feels too soft to Monica, but it’s a different kind of soft, the kind where you’re mattress-shopping and you find a bed that you just  _ sink _ into and you try to sit up and move but no matter what you do, you’re just s _ tuck _ and-

_ Hey _ , Wanda’s voice says in her head, soft and quiet. She squeezes Monica’s hand and presses her leg against Monica’s.  _ You’re okay. _

_ I can breathe _ , Monica thinks shakily. Then she smiles and returns her squeeze.  _ I’m glad you’re here. _

_ I’m glad I’m here. _

By the time they arrive at the ballroom, Monica feels like she’s been plugged into a socket. She keeps Wanda’s hand in hers, even after they left the limo. She feels kinda weird about that, but Wanda smiles and presses closer to her, so she thinks it’s okay.

_ Do you actually like these things? _ , she asks a crowd of paparazzi make their way towards them.

_ Not really. But they’re good for PR. _ From Wanda’s end of the bond, Monica senses the feeling of sunshine on your skin after an exerting day at the beach.  _ And if Spectrum’s gonna make her Avenger debut, this might be a good time for it. _

“Spectrum”, a woman calls out, fingers already positioned on the tablet within her hands. Her eyes dip to where her and Wanda’s hands are entangled, then back up to her eyes. “How would you describe your relationship with the Avengers?”

It continues on like that for a while, questions of a similar sort between the both of them. Monica relaxes, thinking,  _ This isn’t so bad. _

Then a woman emerges between the crowd, shoves a microphone in her face, and asks, “Why exactly did it take you so long to join the Avengers?”.

“I…” Monica swallows and rubs the side of her nose. “Well, I needed some time to adjust-”   
“You don’t think three years is enough of an adjustment period?”, a man adds as he shoves his phone closer towards her. “I mean, you have powers, you might as well use them to help the people that really need them.”

“Spectrum”, another woman proposes, scribbling something away on her notepad. “What do you have to say of the rumor regarding your alleged allegiance to the Sinister Six?”

Monica flicks her gaze throughout the crowd, frozen as question after question at her is hurled at her: what was she doing in those three years; how did her accident stay off the books for so long; isn’t she a good old, patriotic old American who wants to protect her country; why should the public accept her now, after she spent so long withholding her powers from them?

Monica doesn’t answer any of them. She grabs a glass of champagne off a passing tray of drinks and turns invisible, downing the glass and reaching for another within the same second. God, she wishes she could still get drunk.

_ They’re nobodies _ , Wanda’s gruff voice filters in as she finds her near the desert table. When Monica reaches for her, hands panicky and shaky, Wanda grabs hold like she’s the one that needs it.  _ They don’t get it. _

_ This was a mistake _ , Monica thinks, but Wanda just presses closer, grabbing Monica by her chin and tilting it upward. 

_ Tell me you want to leave and we’ll leave _ . When she touches Monica, her body turns invisible and her energy seeps into Monica’s. Monica shudders, watching the way her veins turn dark red.  _ I’ll tell the Team you got sick, they’ll understand. _

_ I came here to be with you _ , Monica thinks, intangible tears leaking trickling down her cheeks. They fall from her eyes, pass through the floor, and disappear from sight.  _ I wanna be with you. _

Wanda presses her palms to Monica’s cheeks and just watches her, eyes a furious, passionate red.  _ I’ll be with you wherever you go. _

Monica opens her mouth to say something, just as the foundation of the building rumbles. She lifts an arm to shield her eyes as a piece of limestone punches itself out of the wall and onto a pack of reporters.

She barely has enough time to place to the voice as belonging to Doc Ock’s before the shrieking meets her ears. Monica turns, staring at the now-still bodies lying beneath the piece of wall. Just moments ago, they’d been so full of life, so angry, so demanding, so frightening.

And now they’re gone. Crushed beneath the limestone they’d previously criticized.

“Well, well, well. Last time I saw this many supers in one room”, Dock Ock quips, eyes excited as he makes his way into the ballroom. “The world was ending.” 

Monica breathes. Her feet slip beneath her.

And she goes falling through the floor.

. . .

_ From the moment of her accident, she’s been terrified of slipping away. At first, she thought it’d be like a balloon lost to a gentle breeze, there in one minute and gone in the next. _

_ Then the days began to spill into weeks and there still hadn’t been a cure and she started to wonder if it’d be worse. If it’d be like suddenly finding yourself on the underside of a sandbox, only you’re the size of an ant and the sandbox the size of space and no matter what you do, you can’t ever claw your way to the surface. _

_ Only now, she realizes it’s not like any of those things. It’s like that feeling you get just before you wake up in the middle of a dream about falling. There’s nothing else particularly scary, you’re just falling, your face to the sky, wind whistling in your ears, whipping lashes against your skin, sucking you down further and further and further until you just  _ know _ there’s pavement beneath you. _

_ It’s like that feeling, but it never ends. And all the while whilst you’re hoping for respite, you’re looking above and seeing all the good things and you left behind and just wondering why you couldn’t hold on longer. _

Monica.

_ Monica inhales, her breathing quickening as she tries to wrap her arms around herself and realizes she’s in her energy form. She curls into a ball and just stays there, watching as the concrete spills over into gravel and then soil. _

Monica.

_ There’s no coming back from this. She’s never gonna see the sun again, never gonna see her friends, her family, Wanda, anyone again. Logically, she knew it was bound to happen at some point, had dreamed about it happening since she first opened her eyes and realised she didn’t have a body, but it’s different when you can actually, literally see your life slipping away from you. _

Monica.

_ Maybe this was always meant to be. Maybe she was never meant to get any further than this. Maybe  _ this _ is all there was, maybe she was meant to die in that explosion and this is just nature’s way of setting things right. Maybe- _

“Monica!”

_ Energy, stiff and taut, wraps around her, pausing her in her freefall and tugging her skywards. Monica whimpers, panting as she comes to the sight of a woman with frantic red eyes.  _ “Monica” _ , the woman says; she crawls into Monica’s lap and hugs her, pulling her close enough for Monica to hear the sound of her beating heart.  _ “It’s okay, Nicki, it’s okay.”  _ She’s rocking as she says this, pulling Monica back and forth as she goes. It reminds Monica, faintly, of her childhood, cuddled up in her father’s lap as a storm raged outside. And just as she had now, she presses closer to the comfort presented to her, closing her eyes against the deadly silence of the earth surrounding them. _

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay” _ , the woman says, and she’s crying, and she’s Wanda, and Monica looks up and presses a finger to her own cheek and realizes she’s crying, too. She feels an energy touching her, mingling with hers, pervasive and wandering, and she lets it for a moment before something occurs to her. _

“Wanda”, she says, and she’s shaking again. “I-”

Wanda frowns and merely holds her tighter. “It’s okay, you’re okay, I promise-”

“No. You…” She trails off, pulsing guilt deep into their bond. Wanda frowns, confused, until realization dawns on her face. She wraps her legs around Monica’s waist and presses their foreheads together. “I’m okay, Monica.” Her lower lip trembles, and tears continue to stream from her eyes, but Monica doesn’t doubt her. Wanda brushes a thumb over Monica’s cheekbone and smiles. “I’m okay.” Her tear drops and dissolves into Monica’s energy. “Are you?”

“No”, Monica says and shakes her head. “I don’t wanna be here.” Her voice cracks, and she buries her face in her neck. “I wanna go home.” And then she takes in a breath, deep and gulping, and cries, “I can’t breathe!”

“Yes, you can.” Wanda grabs hold of Monica’s hair, coiling curls around her fingers, and whispers, “Monica. Monica, baby, tell me the components of the respiratory system”.

“I can’t”, Monica says with a whimper.  _ I can’t. _ _   
_ _ “Yes, you can.” Wanda blinks, eyes wide and flooded with tears, and exhales, a long, controlled breath. “There’s a lot of ‘em. It’s okay if you can’t remember them all. Do you remember one?” _

_ “No!” _

_ “The trachea”, Wanda says for her, pointing to a spot on her throat. “There’s another name for it.” _

_ Monica swallows. Her eyes flicker to behind her, to where there’s nothing but soil and the remains of some animal. Wanda just grabs her by her chin and turns her focus back onto her. _

_ “There’s another name for it”, she whispers, and there’s a note of desperation in her voice. _

_ “Windpipe”, Monica grits out. “It’s the windpipe.” _

_ “That’s right.” Wanda smiles, then quietly says, “Do you know what’s above it?” _

_ “The larynx. People usually call it the voicebox.” Her chest heaves with the breath she takes. _

_ “Good”, Wanda tells her. “That’s good.” _

_ “...Lungs.” _ _   
_ _ Wanda nods. _

_ “Paranasal sinuses”, she continues, drooping against Wanda. “Main bronchi. Diaphragm. Nose. lobar bronchus.”  _

“That’s right”, Wanda murmurs, pressing her face into the side of Monica’s neck. “You told me about these, remember? About how they make you feel better?”

Monica nods. She does remember that. It’s a faint memory, but she knows it’s real. Real like the tremors still clinging to her. “I wanna go home”, she repeats and folds closer to Wanda.   
Wanda’s quiet a minute. Then she presses a kiss to Monica’s neck and nods. “Okay. Okay, babe.” Wanda rubs a hand up and down Monica’s back. “I’ll take you home.”

. . .

It’s a loop. The anxiety attack, the weightlessness, the doctors, examinations. 

Three years. Three years of trying to stay grounded, to stay  _ human _ . And she’s right back where she started.

Although, admittedly, things are a little different now. It’s just Wanda waiting for her in the waiting room, not a bombardment of well-meaning, anxiety-inducing loved ones. And this isn’t an examination but more a checkup. And there’s only one doctor, Stephen, and he’s a hell of a lot more considerate than her first ones had been.

“You look like shit”, he says upon entering the room. He sets a clipboard down on the table, then takes a seat at the wheelie chair beside her bed. “Have you been taking your multivitamins?”   
“Can we skip the asshole routine?”, Monica mumbles. Her energy’s a dull grey, swirling spirals of electrons lazily spinning about her being. “I just had a psychological breakdown, I think I’ve earned it.”

Stephen chuckles, wheeling close to her. He spins his stethoscope around his finger, probably having found in useless in her current state, and watches her. “How do you feel?”   
Monica closes her eyes. “Tired.” 

He hesitates before he poses his next question. “...You okay?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She sniffles, opens her eyes, and stares down at where her feet dangle over the edge of her bed. She’s in a hospital gown. She doesn’t feel as sick and irritable as she had that afternoon. She doesn’t feel much of anything, and, oddly enough, that’s kinda worse. “Or I was for a little while and now I just.” Monica shrugs, folding her hands in her lap. “I just wanna sleep.”

She hasn’t felt this tired in a while. She hasn’t felt this  _ lost _ in a while. She doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

“We’ve got somebody on site if you’d like to see her”, Stephen offers, and Monica sighs, low and heavy, and shakes her head. The last thing she wants is to be psychoanalyzed right now. “You know, this thing only works if you actually see a shrink, right?”   
Monica’s smirk is sardonic. “I’ve been told.” Beside her, her bed sinks as Stephen sits beside her. Tiredly, she opens her eyes and looks at him, noting the streaks of grey in his hair and the worry lines that never seem to go away. It’d be easy, she finds herself thinking, for someone with his power to make himself look more youthful, more happy, even. But for all his work with illusions, he never seems to have much use for them himself. 

“She cares about you, you know.”   
Monica blinks and looks at him.

“She hasn’t left the waiting room since you got here”, Stephen says. It sounds like a good thing, but his eyes are sad as he says this. And Monica knows why.

“Did she say where she’s headed?”, she finds it in herself to ask. Stephen just stares at the wall. Then he says, “Europe, I think. Says once she gets the word that you’re okay that she’ll be gone”.

Monica nods, calmly like she isn’t screaming herself deaf on the inside. She pushes herself off her bed, narrowing her eyes when Stephen moves to block her path.

“I just wanna talk to her.”   
“Just listen to her, okay? Don’t jump to any conclusions.”   
Monica nods as she makes her way towards the door, already beginning a list of conclusions before she meets Wanda in the waiting room. 

She knows even before she sees her that she’s tired. She can feel it in the energy signature tinkling her brain, can see it in the lethargic trails of red seeping throughout the halls. They retreat once they seem to realize that Monica’s aware of them, but by then, Monica’s come upon the waiting room, and she can see the exhaustion reflected in the way her shoulders sloop and her eyelids are mostly closed over her eyes. 

“You’re leaving”, Monica says, feeling breathless despite her absence of lungs when Wanda neglects to refute her. “Why?”   
Wanda just shrugs. “It’s better this way.”   
“Okay, that tells me absolutely nothing.” She takes a seat on the other side of the ottomon and taps her fingers against her thigh. She thinks of earlier, before the gala, and how close they’d been. Like she could half-process a thought and Wanda would be there to finish it.

Now, she reaches out into their bond, and she feels cold reaching back. 

“Maybe there’s a way to sever it”, she suggests without thinking. Then her eyes widen, and she thinks,  _ That could work _ . Because the only reason it isn’t working is because their bond is so strong. But with it gone, Wanda won’t have to worry about the hypersensitivity, it’ll just be like another normal friendship. Monica smiles and looks up to tell Wanda about what a great idea that is, only to falter when she sees the tears brimming in her eyes. 

_ I don’t want that. _

If possible, her eyes get even wider. Wanda seems startled. “Wanda-”

“I don’t want it gone”, she stutters and swipes the back of her hand over her eyes. “I didn’t-I’m not-fucking hell, Nicki, I don’t wanna lose you.”   
Monica bites her lip. She can feel Wanda losing control of herself, flakes of red seeping into her energy range. “Hey, you wouldn’t be losing me. You just...I don’t want you to have to hurt.”   
When Wanda blinks, a tear slips past her eyelash and down her cheek; there are sparkles of red to it. “It’d hurt more to sever it.” She clenches and unclenches her fists, and slowly, so slow that Monica knows she’s waiting for a reaction, reaches out to take hold of Monica’s hands. They don’t solidify like Monica thought they would, but it doesn’t seem to bother Wanda. 

_ I don’t want to go. _

Monica leans close, feeling their energies mingle; it almost feels like a hug.  _ Then why are you? _

_ ...You were upset at the gala. _

Monica smiles. She allows her energy to burn hot, drying the tear that leaks from Wanda’s eye before it can catch her cheek.  _ Well, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. _ She watches Wanda then, the way the guilt blossoms heavy in her eyes, the way the tears grow stronger, and feels her energy begin to shrink.  _ Wanda. That wasn’t cause of you. That was cause of those reporters and Otto and...it was an anxiety attack. Not you. _

She hasn’t been too upfront with Wanda about her mental health. Not because she doesn’t trust her but moreso cause she hadn’t wanted to burden her with the weight of it.

To see Wanda now, though, it might’ve been better if she’d just told her from the jump. 

_ I’m sorry I said you needed a shrink _ , Wanda thinks quietly, and Monica rolls her eyes _ . Look at me, babe, I kinda do.  _

_ You can talk to me, you know. You don’t have to hide this part of yourself.  _ She reaches for Monica again. And this time, she meets solid energy. She wraps her arms around Monica’s waist and pulls her close. Monica hums, crawls into her lap, and rests her face against her chest.

_ So you’re staying? _

_ ...You want me to? _

Monica tangles their fingers together and breathes.  _ More than anything. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all! I know this is a day early, but this chapter's pretty short, so I figure that's for the better?  
Anyway, thank you to everyone who's read, kudoed, commented, bookmared, or in any way interacted with this story. I really appreciate the audience. It's tons of fun to write a story, but it's even more fun when you know there are other people who enjoy that story, too, so thank you. Y'all are the best.

Moving day brings a lot of things into focus.

The past, namely. When Monica initially moved into Johnny’s apartment, it was less of a formal thing and more of a “I Crash Here Every Time I Exhaust Myself So I Guess We’re Roommates Now”. She stayed in his storage room, shared his clothes, and ate all his food ‘til, a few months down the line, when Johnny told her to just move in. And even then, it was more Monica occasionally picking up knickknacks from thrift shops and her parents shipping her stuff from New Orleans until, gradually, Johnny’s apartment became their apartment.

So, technically speaking, there was no official Moving Day 1.0. But standing here, watching Johnny load up box after box, she can’t help but think back to the first night she crashed on his couch.

“All right”, he says once he’s loaded the last box into Andromeda’s cruiser. “That’s...well, it’s not everything, but it’s everything I’ll be needing.”

Monica smiles, and Johnny does, too. They stare at each other for a moment, and then Monica leans forward and draws him into a hug.

“Don’t forget to call”, Johnny sighs, gently patting her back. He blows a puff of air, singeing off a bit of her eyebrow and ducking when she goes to retaliate. He looks over his room then, eyes nostalgic as he takes it in.

Andromeda’s in the living room, looking over some last-minute travel plans before their departure, but Monica thinks that was just an excuse to give them some time alone. 

“You’re gonna kick ass, you know that, right?” She mimes brushing some dust off his shoulders and wiggles her eyebrows. “Human Torch in Space: The Ultimate Experience.”   
“We’re going to fight a war, not shoot a porn flick”, Johnny says with an eye roll. He crosses his arms over his chest and gives her a look. “I mean it, you know.”   
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She tucks her hands into her pockets and smiles. “I’ll call every night, you just make sure you’re somewhere where you can get a signal.” She takes a seat on his bed, and, soon enough, he does the same. The room looks smaller than it used to. “What about you? You gonna be okay?”

Johnny smiles to his feet. “Yeah. I mean, I’m gonna miss everyone but.” He tilts his head back, and she knows he’s looking beyond the ceiling. “Can’t let ‘Meda have all the fun, you know?”

When Monica smiles, it’s bittersweet. “Yeah, I know.” He’s only gonna be gone a few months, a year, at most. And she knows it’s selfish to wish for him to stay, but she does anyway.

But still. This is the next thing for him. And if that’s what makes him happy, then, well, she’s happy.

“Don’t pretend to be all sad.” He bumps their shoulders together and grins. “You and Wanda get the place all to yourself now.”   
At that, Monica rolls her eyes. It’s been nice sharing a room with Wanda, but she can admit she’s seen the appeal in a few months’ time alone to themselves. “I love you, you know.”   
Johnny beams wide, fire spilling between his teeth. “Yeah, I know.”

She sees him off in the back parking lot, Wanda’s arms wrapped comfortably around her waist. Andromeda’s cruiser hovers above the apartment, and, from where she stands, Monica can see the both of them waving. And then, with a harsh hum and a stream of light, they’re gone.

“They’ll be back”, Wanda says, pressing her face into the back of Monica’s neck. 

Monica reaches down and tangles her fingers together where Wanda’s rest across her stomach. “I know.” Then she angles her head so that they’re face to face and smiles smally. “Hi.”   
Wanda blinks. She lifts a hand, grabs Monica by her chin, and kisses her softly, nonplussed by the feel of Monica fading in and out. “Hey.”

All of a sudden, she feels weightless. It hasn’t anything to do with the fact that her feet have left the ground. Monica giggles, shyly looking up as Wanda rises to meet her height. Wanda drags her thumb along the length of Monica’s neck and hums. “Wanna hang out.?”

When she grabs her hand to pull her along, Monica doesn’t let go. She allows herself to be pulled, settling over Wanda’s back like a content blanket. She can feel her form shifting between solid and intangible. And she would be upset about that, but she’s thinking lately, maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Maybe it doesn’t always mean she’s losing control. Maybe, sometimes, it means she’s just feeling too much to be contained to this plane.

In her center, she feels warm and calm. Her hand solidifies. And it stays that way.

She stays that way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know WandaVision doesn't drop 'til the end of the year, but I'm so excited to see what Wanda and Monica's relationship will be like. At the very least, I'm hoping it's friendly.  
Anyway, like I promised, I do have a sequel in mind for this, as well as another Monica/Wanda fic that'll be independent from the first two. It could be a while (some months, a year) before I post because I'm working on a lot of other stuff so keep that in mind. In the meantime, you can expect a Sambucky urban fantasy-esque fic, a canon-divergent Mantis/Nebula fic, and a Nakia/Ororo coming of age fic within the next one to three months.  
It was fun writing. Thanks for reading.


End file.
